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THE YEAR'S FESTIVALS 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



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Celebration in Medieval 
Florence 



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Helen Philbrook Patten 



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Boston 
Dana Estes & Company 

PUBLISHERS 



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THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

AIK3 12 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS «- XXc. No. 

l> -T L 7- 

COPY B. 






Copyright, igoj 
By Dana Estes & Company 



All rights reserved 



THE YEAR'S FESTIVALS 

Published July, 1903 



Colonial $m»s 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

New Year's Dm i 

Twelfth Night , 37 

St. Valentine's Day . . . . -65 

All Fools' Day 95 

Easter 123 

May Day 1J5. 

Hallowe'en 183 

Thanksgiving 211 

Christmas 235 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

May - Day. — Celebration in Mediaeval 

Florence .... Frontispiece 
New Year's. — First - Footers of the 

Olden Time . . . .29 

Twelfth Night. — The Bean -Cake King 49 
Twelfth Night — Revels in an Old 

English Country House 53 

St. Valentine's Day. — The Valentine . 67 
St. Valentine's Day. — Sam Weller In- 
diting His Valentine .... 77 
All Fools' Day. — Village Frolic on 

April First 102 

All Fools' Day. — "The April Fool" . 118 
Easter. — Easter Morning Service . 153 
May -Day. — An English Maypole Dance 162 
May - Day. — The Merrymounters' May- 
Pole . . . . . . .177 

Hallowe'en. — Snap - Apple Night in Ire- 
land . . . .. „ . 207 

Thanksgiving Day. — Home for Thanks- 
giving 215 



List of Illustrations 

PAGE 

Thanksgiving Day. — An Early Thanks- 
giving Feast: Massasoit's Thanks . 231 
Christmas. — Bringing in the Yule -Log 250 
Christmas. — Bringing in the Boar's 

Head . . "- 258 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, 
And the winter winds are wearily sighing: 
Toll ye the church bells sad and slow. 
And tread softly and speak low, 
For the old year lies a-dying. 

"... And let him in 
That standeth there alone, 
And waiteth at the door. 
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, 
And a new face at the door, my friend, 
A new face at the door." 

— Tennyson. 



THE YEAR'S FESTIVALS 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 

" The old year and the new year meet, 
And one goes back to God again, 
And one stays on for joy or pain." 

Nothing shows the character of a people 
more truly than the manner in which it ob- 
serves its holidays, and the kind o>f amuse- 
ments followed by a nation is a fairly true 
index to its degree of moral development. 

The recreations of a rude and primitive 
nation must inevitably be limited to sen- 
suous expressions, however they may be 
modified by climate and national customs; 
and in the earlier stages of civilization the 
3 



4 The Year's Festivals 

main features of customs expressing the 
play instinct are strikingly similar the world 
over. 

It is said that nothing is so difficult to 
control as popular customs which have refer- 
ence to. the enjoyments of a people, for that 
portion of its nature which craves pleasure 
is bound to be satisfied upon every possible 
occasion, and with every plausible excuse. 

For many centuries the pagan games 
survived the gods in whose honor they 
were first instituted; and, more willing to 
surrender their worn-out religion than the 
amusements connected with it, Christianity 
could be made attractive to the ancient 
heathen only by allowing them to bring into 
their new faith many of their old pagan 
amusements and pastimes. 

In very early times man discovered his 
instinct for sport, also* that he was a gre- 
garious animal, and that to enjoy himself 
fully, a man must meet with his fellows 



New Year's Day 5 

and share with them his recreations. As a 
result certain days were given up to this 
purpose. 

Festival days have been established, some 
through natural causes, others arbitrarily, 
and still others by some event connected with 
the religious life of the people. 

Our custom of celebrating New Year's 
Day is centuries old, and began with the 
ancient Germans, whose new year was es- 
tablished quite naturally, as a result of 
changing seasons. 

The German year was at first divided 
loosely into winter and summer; reckon- 
ing the year by winters, and counting the 
winter with the following summer as one 
}^ear. In Germany winter actually begins 
about the middle of November, when the 
ground begins to^ freeze, when snowfalls 
are frequent, and when it is no> longer pos- 
sible for cattle, horses, and sheep to be left 
on the pasture-lands to find their own food. 



6 The Year's Festivals 

The early Germans, being cattle-keeping 
tribes, were compelled by this change to 
alter completely all their summer habits; 
and this marked, in a most definite way, 
the beginning of a new season. Around 
this time of harvest and flock-gathering 
grew up, naturally enough, certain festivities 
among the people who had separated during 
the summer months, but who now collected 
in their rude winter shelters. This old Ger- 
manic division of the year, with its attendant 
festivities, is preserved in the legal insti- 
tutions of the country, in popular tradition, 
in folk-lore, in the still existing rustic cus- 
toms of festivals and bonfires, and in the 
religious habits. The amusements of this 
time were distinctly colored by the imagina- 
tive, simple German character, and so sat- 
isfied the universal need, that many of them, 
with modifications, were adopted by the 
other nations. 

We have a glimpse of one of these old 



New Year's Day 7 

German feasts, the first of which we have 
any trace. In the year 14, Germanicus was 
fighting some German tribes just toi give his 
soldiers a little exercise before he withdrew 
into winter quarters ; and being told by one 
of his scouts that a certain night was a 
festival-night for the Germans, when they 
would be absorbed in drinking and feasting, 
he rushed upon the village, and completely 
surprising it, captured all its inhabitants. 

No mention is made of a New Year's 
observance again, until near the close of 
the sixth century, when St. Martin had be- 
come a great saint of the Church, and the 
date of his death, November nth, had be- 
come the day for commemorating the 
beginning of the new year. Thus the fes- 
tive season, which had heretofore been de- 
pendent upon a difference of temperature 
and other changes of nature, was attached to 
a fixed date. This was kept not only with 
the usual ceremonies, but with those which 



8 The Year's Festivals 

grew out of ideas connected with St. 
Martin, who soon became very popular ; and 
the celebration of Martinmas quickly spread 
into Gaul and Britain. 

While in Germany Martinmas and New 
Year's Day were identical, the Romans were 
reckoning the first of January as the be- 
ginning of the new year, according to the 
Roman calendar, which is usually attributed 
to Numa Pompilius. Numa, it is said, being 
an impulsive despot, and having decreed 
that the year should begin just then, when 
the mood was upon him, added two new 
months to the ten, into which the year had 
been previously divided, and called the first 
Januarius, in honor of Janus, the deity sup- 
posed to preside over open doors, and who 
might naturally be interested in the opening 
of the new year. 

This god is represented by the Romans 
as a man with two faces, one looking back- 
ward and the other forward, implying that 



New Year's Day 9 

he stood between the past and the future 
year, regarding both. 

An English poet has given us his picture 
of this old Roman god : 

" Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star 
Tells us the day himself 's not far; 
With him old Janus doth appear, 
Peeping into the future year 
With such a look as seems to say 
The prospect is not good that way. 
But stay! but stay! Methinks my sight 
Better informed by clearer light. 
His reversed face doth show distaste 
And frown upon the ills are past. 
But that which this way looks is clear, 
And smiles upon the new-born year." 

With the invasion of the Romans came 
Roman customs, which were slowly adopted 
by the German people. Of course, Roman 
festive occasions were the first to be re- 
garded, and gradually into the German 
feast-days crept a new element, none the less 
welcome because introduced by the conquer- 



IO The Year's Festivals 

ing nation. These celebrations growing 
more and more popular each year, reached 
their height in the extravagant expressions 
of merriment and good cheer at Martinmas ; 
but after the Julian calendar was generally 
accepted, it could not fail that usages hav- 
ing special reference to the beginning of the 
new year, in the observance of Martinmas, 
should be gradually transferred to the first 
of January. Comparatively modern New 
Year's customs have still retained something 
of the character of the old Martinmas fes- 
tivities, which were often accompanied by 
very childish and grotesque performances. 
Eating and drinking has ever been a fa- 
vorite pastime, and much of this was done 
in honor of St. Martin. No wonder he 
is called the " drunken saint," nor do 1 we 
marvel at the invention of a Martin goose. 
An old votive has said : " Firstly, they 
praise St. Martin with good wine and 
geese until they are drunk. Unblessed the 



New Year's Day n 

house that has not a goose to eat that night ; 
then they also tap their new wines which 
they have kept so far." 

There was also a song dedicated to St. 
Martin for the benefit of the musical revel- 
lers, and St. Martin fires, — public bon- 
fires around which the crowds gathered and 
when boys sang: 

" Stoocht vyer mackt vyer : 
Sinte Marten komt hier 
Met syne bloote armen; 
Hy sonde hem geerne warmen." 1 

This convenient saint was made useful by 
some who were more crafty than reverent. 
The story goes that a rich farmer and his 
people got drunk in honor of Saint Martin. 
A thief broke into the stable, and when sur- 

1 " Stoke the fire, make the fire : 
Since St. Martin comes here 
With his bare arms, 
He would gladly warm them." 



12 The Year's Festivals 

prised by the dazed farmer shook off his 
clothes, assumed a humble attitude, and pre- 
tended to be St. Martin. The credulous 
farmer went on with his banquet, and in 
the morning found his stable empty. 

St. Martin's game gives us an idea of 
the rough sport enjoyed by the crowds in 
the public square, and is described thus : 
" The people enclosed in a circuit two wild 
boars, which tore each other to pieces. The 
meat was divided among the people, the best 
bits being given to the authorities." One 
writer quaintly says : " We Germans think 
St. Martin's the time when people should be 
gay and banquet more than on other seasons 
of the year; perhaps for the sake of the 
new wine; then people roast fat geese, all 
the world rejoicing." And with the same 
idea a popular rhyme reads : 

"Auff Martini schlacht man fliste Schwein 
Und wird allda der Most zu Wein." 



New Year 's Day 1 3 

(" On St. Martin's Day one slaughters busily, swine, 
And then the must x is changed to wine.") 

To add zest to the occasion, on St. Mar- 
tin's Eve the devil was allowed free play, 
and many stories are told by the fearful, 
superstitious ones, of his walking about in 
the earth. On one Martinmas Eve, " in 
the shape of a man dressed in a long wolf- 
skin coat, he appeared before a young fellow, 
and raged about in such fashion, all the 
persons witnessing had to be brought to 
the high altar for protection." As children 
listen at the door and whisper " Wolves ! " 
to induce delightful shivers of fear, so these 
people, not content with the plain pleasures 
of goose and wine, were exhausting the de- 
lights of fancy. Imaginations were doubtless 
unchecked as well as the evil one, and it 
was much more exciting to rush to high 
altars, screaming for protection, than to in- 

1 Unfermented wine — grape-juice. 



14 The Year's Festivals 

vestigate this very commonplace devil. If 
a thief could successfully palm himself oft' 
as good St. Martin, surely even a harmless 
man might play at being a Martinmas devil. 

This season marked a change in the 
domestic arrangements. House servants 
changed places at Martinmas, and farm 
hands began the new year under new mas- 
ters; and there are still recollections of St.' 
Martin's as being the old German New 
Year, for instead of saying, " A man has 
lived through many years," the people say, 
" The man has helped to eat many a St. 
Martin goose." 

The old lines, " Iss Gauss Martini, trink 
Wein ad circulum anni " (Eat goose-meat 
on St. Martin's Day, drink wine all the year 
round), refer to the beginning of the new 
year, when people drank good luck to a new 
twelvemonth. 

While the celebration of Martinmas as 
the beginning of a new year was waning in 



New Year 's Day 1 5 

Germany and other countries, the first of 
January as New Year's Day was taking to 
itself much of the Martinmas spirit of jollity, 
and there were added to those customs al- 
ready established variations which grew out 
of usages peculiar to different localities. 

At New Year's Eve, superstitious people, 
girt with their swords, sat down on the roofs 
of their houses to discover what good and 
bad things would come with the New Year. 
Others knelt down at a cross-road on a cow- 
hide to listen for oracles. 

An early Roman custom was that of pre- 
senting branches of trees for the sake of 
good luck in the coming year. Our custom 
of decorating our houses and churches with 
laurel and evergreens is a remnant of this 
old Roman practice. 

A good fifteenth-century churchman evi- 
dently regarded this custom doubtfully when 
he said : " Trimmyng of the Temples with 
hangynges, floures, boughs, and garlandes, 



1 6 The Year's Festivals 

was taken of the Heathene people whiche 
decked their Idoles and houses with suche 
arraye." 

The custom of presenting and receiving 
gifts on St. Martin's Day became popular, 
as the ceremonies grew to be more elaborate; 
but later, when the rioting was carried to 
such an extent that it disturbed the public 
peace, and the police suppressed all expres- 
sions of hilarity, the gifts o>f Martinmas were 
gradually reduced to payments of rents to 
landlords, and tithes to the Church. 

The New Year's gift no doubt originated 
with the Romans, for with them, giving and 
taking was carried to such an extravagant 
degree during all the three hundred and 
sixty-five days of the year, that Emperor 
Claudius prohibited the demanding of pres- 
ents except on New Year's Day; but the 
practice continued for many years. In Eng- 
land and Scotland the sixteenth-century cus- 



New Year's Day 17 

toms are numerous, and many of them are 
strangely childish. 

In Scotland it was perfectly allowable to 
ask for a New Year's gift; and Henry III. 
of England is said to have extorted presents 
in plate and other valuables; while Queen 
Elizabeth's jewelry and wardrobe was almost 
wholly supplied from these gifts. 

In the " Masque of Christmas/' the char- 
acter of " New Year's Gift " is described 
as appearing " in a blue coat, serving-man 
like, with an orange, and a sprig of rosemary 
on his head, his hat full of brooches, with a 
collar of gingerbread, his torch-bearer carry- 
ing a marchpane, with a bottle of wine on 
either arm." This motley fellow gives the 
complete early seventeenth-century thought 
of the New Year — the thoroughly material, 
eating and drinking, gift-taking, pleasure- 
loving New Year. 

In old times gloves were popular, but in 
that age, very expensive New Year's pres- 



1 8 The Year's Festivals 

ents, and when money was given instead of 
a gift, it was called " glove money." 

Sir Thomas More, when Lord Chancellor, 
decided a case in favor of a certain lady, 
who, on the following New Year, presented 
him with a pair of gloves containing forty 
gold angels. Sir Thomas returned the coin 
with a note, saying : " Mistress, since it were 
against all good manners to refuse your 
New Year's gift, I am content to take your 
gloves, but as for the lining, I utterly refuse 
it." 

The first metal pins were rough, hand- 
made affairs, but were considered rare pieces 
of workmanship compared with the skewers 
of bone and wood formerly used, and this 
invention was so important that during the 
reign of Henry VIII. a statute was passed 
called " An acte for the true making of 
Pynnes." 

These new articles for the toilet made 
very agreeable gifts for ladies, and the 



New Year's Day 19 

money spent for these luxuries was called 
" pin money," a familiar expression X.o us, 
but used now with quite a different mean- 
ing. 

The usual gift of country tenants to their 
landlords was a capon, as no common fowl 
was in keeping with this extraordinary feast- 
ing-time. This peasant gift is mentioned in 
the old rhyme : 

" When with low legs, and in a humble guise 
Ye offered up a capon-sacrifice 
Unto his Worship at the New Year's tide." 

H His Worship " accepted this sacrifice as 
a part of his New Year, never thinking that 
his servant with " low legs and humble 
guise " might never have tasted good fat 
capon. The sympathies of Bishop Hall are 
clearly in favor of the swain who is forced 
to be generous, when in his satires he says : 

" Yet must he haunt his greedy landlord's hall 
With often presents at ech festivall; 



20 The Year's Festivals 

With crammed capons every New Year's morne, 
Or with green cheeses when his sheep are shorne, 
Or many maunds full of his mellow fruite." 

Within his hall the landlord of old Eng- 
land made merry with his family, in feast- 
ing and drinking the famous wassail, which 
had become an important part of New Year's 
merrymaking. The head of the house called 
the members of his family around the bowl 
of spiced ale, and drank their healths, then 
passed it to the rest, who' drank with the 
words " Wass had " (" To your health "). 

There is little doubt that the term wassail 
is found in the story of Vortigern and 
Rowena, the daughter of the old Jute chief 
Hengist. It is said that on Vortigern's first 
interview with the lady, she knelt before him, 
and, presenting a cup of wine, said, " Lord 
King, wacht heil!" ("Health to you"). 
As the Briton did not understand the lan- 
guage, he inquired the meaning of the 
words. He was told that they wished his 



New Year's Day 21 

health, and that he should answer by say- 
ing drinc heil. He asked one of his men to 
explain the custom, which he did. The 
incident is described in the old English lines 
of Robert de Brunne: 

" This is ther custom and her gest 
When thei are at the ale or fest. 
Ilk man that lovis quare him think 
Sail say Wasseille, and to him drink. 
He that bidis salle say Wassaile, 
The other sail say again Drinkhaille 
That says Wosseille drinkis of the cop 
Kissand his fellaw he gives it up. 
The king said as the knight gan ken 
Drinkheille, smiland on Rouewen, 
Rouwen drank as hire list 
And gave the king, sine him kist. 
There was the first wassaille in dede, 
And that first of fame yede. 
Of that wassaille men told grete tale, 
And wassaile whan thei were at ale 
And drink heille to tham that drank; 
Thus was wassaile taen to thank." 

The wassail of later times was not a 
simple ale or wine, but was a mixed drink, 



22 The Year 's Festivals 

made with studied care as to ingredients and 
flavor ; the recipe for making it exceeds any- 
thing in our modern cook-books as an 
example of intricate compounding. It con- 
tained eight kinds of spices, six bottles of 
ale, sherry, or Madeira, twelve eggs, " well 
whisked up," and various fruits. After 
many processes of slow and brisk stirring, 
simmering, skimming, gradual adding of in- 
gredients, and pouring from one dish to 
another, the mixture was boiled " till a fine 
froth was obtained." Then, with the tossing 
in of " twelve fine soft roasted apples," it was 
sent up hot. 

A favorite New Year's gift was an orange 
stuck with cloves, which was used to float 
in the wassail-bowl to add new and delicious 
flavors. 

The poorer classes were accustomed to call 
upon their more favored neighbors after the 
family health-drinking, with a bowl decked 
with ribbons, to ask for contributions of 



New Year's Day 23 

spiced ale, that they, as well as their land- 
lords, might drink wassail. The old song 
used by the Gloucestershire rustics, in their 
rounds for ale, served to give voice to their 
spirit of jollity, and to turn embarrassing 
begging into an occasion to compliment the 
host, the members of his family, and his 
horses and cows. The doggerel runs: 

" Wassail ! Wassail ! over the town, 
Our toast it is white, our ale it is brown: 
Our bowl it is made of the maplin-tree, 
We be good fellows all; I drink to thee. 

"Here's to Roan Dobbin, and to his right ear, 
God send our maister a happy new year; 
A happy new year as e'er I did see — 
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee. 

" Here's to old Ewe-neck, and to his right eye, 
God send our mistress a good Christmas pie: 
A good Christmas pie as e'er I did see — ■ 
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee. 

" Here's to Filpail, and to her long tail, 
God send our maister us never may fail 
Of cup of good beer; I pray you draw near, 
And then you shall hear our jolly wassail. 



24 The Year's Festivals 

" Be here any maids, I suppose there be some ; 
Sure they will not let young men stand on the cold 

stone ; 
Sing hey O maids, come troll back the pin, 
And the fairest maid in the house, let us all in. 

" Come, butler, come bring us a bowl of the best : 
I hope your soul in heaven may rest: 
But if you do bring us a bowl of the small, 
Then down fall butler, bowl, and all." 

The spirit of good wishing was so broad 
that it included not only the domestic ani- 
mals, but even the fruit-trees; and there 
existed the custom of " apple howling," when 
troops of boys gathered in the orchards, and, 
surrounding the apple-trees, sang : 

" Stand fast root, bear well top, 
Pray God send us a good howling crop; 
Every twig, apples big; 
Every bough, apples enow; 
Hats full, caps full, 
Full quarter sacks full." 

Then followed a chorus with an accom- 
paniment of blaring cow-horns and the beat- 
ing of tree-trunks. 



New Year's Day 25 

An old English writer looked upon all 
the benefactions, health-drinkings, and other 
ceremonies, with evident suspicion, for he 
says : 

" The 1 st of January being raw, colde, 
and comfortlesse to such as have lost their 
money at dice at one of the Temples over- 
night, strange apparitions are like to be 
seen." And with reference to New Year's 
gifts, writes : " This day shall be given many 
more gifts than shall be asked for, and apples, 
egges, and oranges shall be lifted to a lofty 
rate; when a pome-water bestucke with a 
few rotten cloves shall be more worth than 
the honesty of a hypocrite; and halfe a 
dozen eggs of more estimation than the 
vowes of a strumpet. 

" Poets shall this day get mightily by 
their pamphlets ; for an hundred of elaborate 
lines shall be less esteemed in London than 
an hundred of Walfleet oysters at Cam- 
bridge." 



26 The Year 's Festivals 

The hospitality of New Year's tide is per- 
versely interpreted by Seldon in his " Table 
Talks," who ungraciously says of the offer- 
ing of wassail by women : 

" At New Year's tide these wenches pre- 
sent you with a cup, and you must drink of 
a slabby stuff, but the meaning is, you must 
give them money ten times more than it is 
worth." 

The custom of wassail drinking prevailed 
in the monasteries, as well as in private 
houses. Before the abbot at the head of the 
table was placed the huge bowl ; the superior 
then drank to all, and each monk to the 
others, and so on down the table, each stand- 
ing while drinking the health of his next 
neighbor. This ceremony is the origin of 
the loving-cup. 

The Scots have a legend of the healing 
properties of wassail. " There was a collier, 
one William Hunter, who was cured in the 
year 1758 of an inveterate gout, by drinking 



New Year's Day 27 

freely of new ale, full of barm or yest. The 
poor man had been confined to his bed for 
a year and a half, having almost lost the use 
of his limbs. On New Year's Eve some 
of his friends came to make merry with him. 
Though he could not rise, he always took 
his share of ale as it passed round the 
company, and, in the end, became very drunk. 
The consequence was, that he had the use 
of his legs the next morning, and was able 
to walk about. He lived more than twenty 
years after this, and never had the slightest- 
return of the malady." 

The custom of drinking in the New Year 
with spiced drinks prevailed vigorously in 
Scotland until a very few years ago. Then, 
just before twelve o'clock, a " hot pint " was 
prepared, and at the stroke of midnight each 
member of the family drank " a good health 
and a happy New Year and many of them " 
to all the rest ; then would follow handshak- 
ing and more good wishing and a dance 



28 The Year's Festivals 

around the table, with a shouting of the song 
to the tune of " Hey tuttie taitie " : 

"Weel may we a' be, 
111 may we never see, 
Here's to the king 
And the gude companie ! " 

After this home drinking, the older members 
of the household often took the hot kettle 
to a neighbor's house, but if on the way they 
were met by others bent on the same errand, 
boisterous good wishes were again expressed, 
and the " hot pint " went the rounds. 

If you were the first one to enter your 
neighbor's house after midnight, you brought 
good luck to the family for the year, and 
you were called the first foot; but to insure 
the heartiest welcome, in addition to your 
hot pint, you must come loaded with bread 
and cheese and cakes, of which civility de- 
manded that each member of the family 
should partake. This custom is thoroughly 
consistent with Scotch philosophy, which 



TRew gear's 

First - Footers of the 
Olden Time 



New Year's Day 29 

taught that you must share your neighbor's 
goods while you may, and is embodied in 
the old verse: 

" Get up gude wife and binno sweir, (lazy) 

And deal your cakes and cheese while you are here; 

For the time will come when ye'll be dead 

And neither need your cheese nor bread." 

The custom of first- footing was so popular 
in Edinburgh, that at the hours about mid- 
night the streets were thronged with rollick- 
ing, jovial people, and much good feeling 
existed among all classes. 

Unfortunately this pleasant part of New 
Year's celebration was abolished through 
an event both surprising and disastrous. 
Some reckless young fellows decided that 
this was an occasion to despoil the unsus- 
pecting first-footers of their watches and 
other valuables. The streets at that time 
being dark, or, at best, poorly lighted by 
lanterns, the young men agreed to " look out 
for white neck-cloths," thinking that the best 



30 The Year's Festivals 

way by which they could distinguish a gen- 
tleman who was likely to carry valuables. 
A great number had watches, money, and 
jewels taken, and the slightest resistance was 
encountered with such brutality that many 
died from the injuries received. This so 
outraged ' the community that as a punish- 
ment three of the young thieves were ex- 
ecuted on the scene of riot; and the feeling 
was so wide-spread and lasting, that from 
that time first-footing with the hot pint 
ceased to be in vogue. 

There was, however, a first-footing inde- 
pendent of the wassail-bowl, and which was 
in no way affected by the riots of young 
thieves. 

The young man who could meet a fresh, 
charming first-footer at the door was not 
only given the privilege of kissing her, but 
the good luck she brought him would win 
him a bride before another year came round. 
Though the position of doorkeeper was 



New Year's Day 3 1 

much sought after by the laddies, it was not 
without its drawbacks, for more than likely, 
instead of meeting his blushing Peggy, 
he was obliged to lead in his withered grand- 
mother or a maiden aunt, the butt of a taunt- 
ing, unmerciful company. 

There are various old sayings connected 
with New Year's Day. In an old English 
tract we find this advice for January first : 

" This month drink you no wine commixed with 

dregs ; 
Eat capons, and fat hens with dumpling legs." 

Then it is bad luck to carry anything out 
of the house before bringing something in, 
according to' this rhyme : 

"Take out, then take in, 
Bad luck will begin ; 
Take in, then take out, 
Good luck comes about." 

The saying is still heard : 

"In the North of England, at New Year's tide, 
The days lengthen a cock's stride." 



32 The Year's Festivals 

And: 

" If the grass grows in Janiveer, 
It grows the worse for't all the year." 

Another old saw is : 

" The blackest month of all the year, 
Is the month of Janiveer." 

In a few rural places the ringing in of New 
Year from the church belfries is now the 
only open demonstration of cheer at this 
anniversary, and nearly all of the old-time 
observances have fallen into disuse. 

The custom once so general among gentle- 
men, of making rounds of calls upon New 
Year's Day, is now discontinued. This cus- 
tom came down to us from the New Amster- 
dam Dutch, whose hospitality was limitless 
on New Year's Day ; and the people of New 
York continued this social custom for sev- 
eral centuries. 

The watch-meetings and midnight services 
in churches, and the gathering of young peo- 



New Year's Day 33 

pie, who get together to watch the old year 
out and the new year in, will probably be con- 
tinued ; for there is still that in us which 
impels us to sit up till after twelve o'clock 
on that mystic night, lest something super- 
natural takes place that we would miss by 
going to bed early. There is a remnant of 
the old superstition left in the modern civi- 
lized heart, which flavors of that which 
prompted the forefathers to climb on the 
roof to see what would happen on New 
Year's night. 

With the inevitable growth into things 
spiritual we are no longer satisfied to re- 
member this anniversary with a great deal 
to eat, very much more to drink, and with 
gifts extorted from our friends. 

We generally talk about " New Year's 
resolutions," if we do not put them into prac- 
tice, and some make the effort to shake them- 
selves free from their old year's garment, 
worn and tattered and patched, in exchange 



34 The Year 's Festivals 

for one which they hope to wear unspotted 
for a twelvemonth. 

Of New Year's Day Charles Lamb said 
x that no one, of whatever rank, can regard it 
with indifference. " Of all sounds of all 
bells," he says, " most solemn and touching is 
the peal which rings out the old year. I 
never hear it without a gathering up of my 
mind to a concentration of all the images 
that have diffused over the past twelve- 
month; all I have done or suffered, per- 
formed or neglected, in that regretted time. 
I begin to know its worth when a friend dies. 
It takes a personal color ; nor was it a poeti- 
cal flight in a contemporary when he ex- 
claimed : 

"'I saw the skirts of the departing year.'" 

The thoughts surrounding the old and new 
3^ear have inspired poets to produce gems 
in verse. What can be more vivid than 



New Year's Day 35 

the picture which Tennyson gives us in " The 
Death of the Old Year " ? 

These words by Edith Thomas from the 
mouth of Janus in a " New Year's Masque," 
suggest varied thought, and are full of 
beautiful imagery : 

"'Tis mine to guard the portal of the year, 
To close or open to the seasons four 
And to the importuning throng of days. 
Sometimes I hear the tread of stormy feet, 
Hoarse trumpet blasts, and loud assaulting blows, 
And threats to pull my ancient fortress down; 
But other times they come with flatteries smooth, 
Entreating, ' Janus, Janus, let us in ! ' 
I watchful stand; I will not turn the key 
Until my glass and fingered dial stern 
Declare the moment ripe. Two ways I look, 
Two faces I present; one seamed with eld, 
And gray with looking on the frozen past; 
One fresh as morn, and fronting days to be. 

Now while the surging, deep-toned bells lament 
The passed year, e'er fickle, they shall change 
Their solemn burden for a round of joy, 
Chiming the praises of the year new-crowned." 



TWELFTH NIGHT 



TWELFTH NIGHT 

"THE THREE KINGS 

" Three Kings came riding from far away, 

Melchior, and Gaspar, and Baltasar; 
Three Wise Men out of the East were they, 
And they travelled by night and they slept by day, 

For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star. 

"And the Three Kings rode through the gate and 
the guard, 
Through the street till their horses turned 
And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard; 
But the windows were closed and the doors were 
barred, 
And only a light in the stable burned. 

" And cradled there in the scented hay, 
In the air made sweet by the breath of kine, 

The little child in the manger lay, 

The child that would be king one day 
Of a kingdom not human but divine." 

— Longfellow. 



TWELFTH NIGHT 

" At his birth a star 
Unseen before in Heaven proclaims Him come; 
And guides the Eastern sages, who inquire 
His place, to offer incense, myrrh, and gold." 

— Milton. 
" A jolly 
Verse crowned with ivy and with holly; 
That tells of winter's tales and mirth 
That milk-maids make about the hearth ; 
Of Twelfth-tide cakes, of peas and beans, 
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes, 
Whenas ye choose your king and queen, 
And cry out, " Hey for our town green ! " 

— Herrick. 

The climax of that festival season in- 
augurated on Christmas Eve is reached on 
Twelfth Day, the sixth of January, which is 
also the Church feast of the Epiphany. 

The chief event commemorated is the 
visit of the three Magi, or Wise Men of 
39 



40 The Year's Festivals 

the East, to the infant Saviour. There are 
other references, as the baptism of our Lord, 
and his miraculous power displayed at the 
marriage at Cana of Galilee, and the feed- 
ing* of the five thousand, which are said to 
have occurred on this date. But these points 
are of minor importance on this day of the 
" Feast of Three Kings," as it is called in 
the Latin Church, for, originally, all the 
ceremonies had particular reference to the 
visit of the " Three Kings," as they came 
to be called. 

The story had been elaborated in its de- 
tails by the help of tradition and imagina- 
tion, and these men were considered to have 
been royal personages, named Melchior, Cas- 
par, and Balthasar, descended respectively 
from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and were 
the first of the heathen world to' do- homage 
to Christ. They were guided by the blazing 
star in the East, and reached " the place 
where the young child lay " just twelve days 



Twelfth Night 41 

after his birth. Melchior brought gold in 
testimony of Christ's royalty, Caspar 
brought frankincense in token of his divin- 
ity, and Balthasar brought myrrh in allu- 
sion to the sorrows which the Divine One 
had taken upon himself by becoming man. 

These remarkable strangers have been 
highly honored, and their deed of devotion 
being the occasion of one of the most firmly 
established festival days of the Church, they 
are not likely ever to be forgotten. Whence 
they came and whither they went remains 
a mystery, but their pilgrimage to the cradle 
of the Christ-Child was enough to warm 
the heart of the world to them for all the 
ages following. 

The day is sometimes called the " Feast 
of the Star," and has been celebrated under 
that name in the Church, and as a sacred 
festival in other places. 

The name Twelfth Night is a relic of the 
time when the period of twenty-four hours 



42 The Year's Festivals 

was reckoned from sunset to sunset, and 
night meant not only a night but the day 
following. 

A little dramatic service called the " Feast 
of the Star " was acted in the churches, in 
the Middle Ages. " Three priests, clothed as 
kings, with their servants carrying offer- 
ings, met from different directions before 
the altar. The middle one, who came from 
the east, pointed with his staff to a star. 
A dialogue then ensued; and after kissing 
each other, they began to sing, ' Let us go 
and inquire ; ' after which, the precentor 
began a responsory, ' Let the Magi come.' 
A procession then commenced, and as soon 
as it began to enter the nave, a crown, with 
a star, resembling a cross, was lighted up 
and pointed out to the Magi with the words, 
' Behold the Star in the East.' This being 
concluded, two priests, standing at each 
side of the altar, answered meekly, ' We 
are those whom you seek ; ' and, drawing a 



Twelfth Night 43 

curtain, shewed them a child, whom, falling 
down, they worshipped. Then the servants 
made the offerings of gold, frankincense, 
and myrrh, which were divided among the 
priests. The Magi, meanwhile, continued 
praying till they dropped asleep ; then a boy, 
clothed in an alb, like an angel, addressed 
them with ' All things which the prophets 
said are fulfilled.' The festival concluded 
with a chanting service." This description 
shows us how slightly the celebration of 
Twelfth Night, in mediaeval times, departed 
from the purely religious thought. Later it 
became much more secular. 

At Milan, in 1336, the Festival of the 
Three Kings was celebrated in a spectacular 
manner, paying attention to the externals of 
Christianity, as was the tendency of the 
Middle Ages; reminding one of the whited 
sepulchre of Scripture reference. " The 
three kings appeared, crowned, on three 
great horses richly habited, surrounded by 



44 The Year 's Festivals 

pages, body-guards, and an innumerable 
retinue. A golden star was exhibited in the 
sky going before them. They proceeded to 
the pillars of St. Lawrence, where King 
Herod was represented, with his scribes and 
wise men. 

" The three kings ask Herod where Christ 
should be born, and his wise men, having 
consulted their books, answer, at Bethle- 
hem. On which the three kings, with their 
golden crowns, having in their hands golden 
cups filled with frankincense, myrrh, and 
gold, the star going before, marched to the 
Church of St. Eustorgius, with all their at- 
tendants, preceded by trumpets, horns, asses, 
baboons, and a great variety of animals. 
In the church, on one side of the high altar, 
there was a manger with an ox and ass, 
and in it the infant Christ in the arms of his 
mother. Here the three kings offer him 
gifts. The concourse of people, of knights, 



Twelfth Night 45 

ladies, and ecclesiastics, was such as was 
never before beheld." 

This rather involved description gives 
us a picture of a very motley crowd. One 
can well believe that the scene was impres- 
sive, though the quantity of live stock sug- 
gests to the light mind of the present day 
some recollections of a circus parade. A 
baboon never laughs, to be sure, but he seems 
a bit out of place in a religious procession. 

Robert Herrick, who wrote during the first 
half of the seventeenth century, has left us 
a sweet, quaint little poem, which combines 
the devotion to the Christ-Child with a sug- 
gestion of the festive customs of the time: 

"THE STAR SONG: A CAROLL TO THE KING 

" SUNG AT WHITE - HALL. 

" The -flourish of musick — then followed the Song. 
Tell us, thou clere and heavenly Tongue, 
Where is the Babe but lately sprung? 
Lies he the lillie-banks among? 



46 The Year 's Festivals 

" Or say if this new Birth of ours 
Sleeps, laid within some ark of flowers, 
Spangled with deaw-lights? Thou canst cleere 
All doubts, and manifest the where. 

" Declare to us, bright star, if we shall seek 
Him in the morning's blushing cheek, 
Or search the beds of spices through, 
To find him out? 

" STAR. 

" No, this ye need not do : 
But onely come, and see Him rest 
A princely Babe in's mother's brest 

" CHORUS. 

" He's seen ! He's seen ! Why then a round 
Let's kisse the sweet and holy ground, 
And all rejoyce that we have found 
A King, before conception crown'd. 

" Come then, come then, and let us bring 
Unto our prettie Twelfth-Tide King 
Each one his severall offering. 

" And when night comes, wee'l give him wassailing ; 

And that his treble honors may be seen, 

Wee'l chuse him King and make his mother queen." 



Twelfth Night 47 

There were influences of a more festive 
and frivolous nature abroad in the land 
than the story of the three Magi, and the 
customs of Twelfth Night were, many of 
them, far from dignified or solemn. Some 
have tried to identify the date with that of 
the old Saturnalia, but it seems a useless 
task to attempt anything of the kind, when 
the days, months, and years were not the 
same in all parts of the civilized world, and 
it is not likely that the identity of dates 
could be proved. Of course, the old social 
customs. had their effect upon the surround- 
ing nations, as surely as to-day our liter- 
ature and art are influenced by Greece and 
Rome, now so> long dead. 

The character of the Twelfth-Night cele- 
bration lost, in time, much of its religious 
tone, and took a more easy, festive air, 
though the Magi were always remembered, 
in form, at least. The kings of England, 
down to the time of the Georges, went with 



48 The Year 's Festivals 

their courtiers to church, on Twelfth Day, 
with offerings of gold, frankincense, and 
myrrh. 

As a popular feast-day, Twelfth Day 
stands second only to Christmas. Being at 
the end of that holiday-time, the " twelve 
days of Christmas," it would seem that the 
people let their spirits loose for a final revel, 
as if there would never be another play- 
day as far in the future as they could see. 
Even then, some seemed unable to terminate 
their sports, and went on feasting till Candle- 
mas Day — the second of February ; but that 
was practised, they say, " only among the 
vulgar." The athletes of our own day would 
find it wearisome to carouse for nearly two 
weeks, while ordinary mortals would lie by 
the wayside in heaps of wreckage, if they at- 
tempted one of those sixteenth century 
Christmas festivals, twenty days in extent. 

The one thing peculiar to Twelfth-Night 
revels in all lands, was the choosing of a 



The Bean - Cake King 



Twelfth Night 49 

king of the feast by means of a bean hidden 
in a cake. This " bean-cake king " is the 
most distinctive feature of the occasion. 
Around him the other persons and per- 
formances revolve as satellites of lesser 
glory. In many a history, diary, poem, and 
story do we find reference to this old cus- 
tom. It was a common gambol at the com- 
mencement of the eighteenth century, at the 
English universities and elsewhere, to give 
the name of king or queen to that person 
whose luck it was to choose the piece of 
a divided cake, which was honored above all 
the others by having a bean in it. 

Sometimes a coin was used instead of a 
bean. A detailed account of election and 
the subsequent ceremonies, as they occurred 
before the year 1620, is taken from an old 
authority as follows : 

" Here we have the materials of the cake, 
which are flour, honey, ginger, and pepper. 
One is made for each family. The maker 



50 The Year's Festivals 

thrusts in, at random, a small coin as she 
is kneading it. When it is baked, it is 
divided into* as many parts as there are per- 
sons in the family. It is distributed, and 
each has his share. Portions of it are also 
assigned to Christ, the Virgin, and the three 
Magi, which are given away in alms. Who- 
ever finds the piece of coin in his share, is 
saluted by all as king, and, being placed on 
a seat or throne, is thrice lifted aloft with 
joyful acclamations. He holds a piece of 
chalk in his right hand, and each time he is 
lifted up, makes a cross on the ceiling. 
These crosses are thought to prevent many 
evils, and are much revered." 

A queen was chosen by the king, or, in 
some cases, by a " peaze " found in the 
cake. The host and hostess were often, more 
by design than accident, appointed king and 
queen. These choose other members of the 
company to be ministers of state, maids of 
honor, or ladies of the bedchamber. Accord- 



Twelfth Night 51 

ing to Twelfth-Day law, each supported his 
character till midnight. The king appointed 
one of the company as fool for the evening, 
and it was his pleasant mission to " keep the 
table in a roar." This could not have been 
difficult under the circumstances. 

The chief entertainment and delight of 
the evening was, of course, drinking. The 
king was the first to raise his glass, and at 
that moment the company shouted, " The 
king drinks ! " and impetuously followed his 
lead. The healths of all must be drunk, and 
by the time midnight arrived, especially at 
the end of a twelve days' revel, they must 
have been a very sodden company indeed. 

In France it seems to have been the cus- 
tom for the " bean-cake king " to pay the 
cost of his banquet. This is referred to 
incidentally in an English political tract pub- 
lished in 165 1 : " Verily, I think they make 
use of kings as the French on Epiphany Day 
use their Roy de la Fehve, or King of the 



52 The Year's Festivals 

Bean ; whom, after they have honored with 
drinking of his health, and shouting aloud, 
' Le Roy boit ! Le Roy boit ! ' they make pay 
for all the reckoning, not leaving him some- 
times one penny, rather than that the exhor- 
bitance of their debosh should not be satisfied 
to the full." 

The following description of a Twelfth- 
Day revel shows how it was conducted in 
the halls of the country gentry and sub- 
stantial yeomanry in England in the reigns 
of Elizabeth and James I. 

The breakfast on Twelfth Day is directed 
to be of brawn, mustard, and malmsey ; the 
dinner of two courses, to be served in the 
hall, and after the first course " cometh in the 
Master of the Game, apparelled in green 
velvet, and the Ranger of the Forest, also 
in a green suit of satten ; bearing in his hand 
a green bow and divers arrows, with either 
of them a hunting-horn about their necks : 
blowing together three blasts of venery, they 



Uwelftb -Hicjbt 

Revels in an Old English 
Country House 



Twelfth Night 53 

pace round about the fire three times. Then 
the Master of the Game maketh three cour- 
tesies, kneels down, and petitions to be ad- 
mitted into the service of the Lord of the 
Feast. 

" This ceremony performed, a huntsman 
cometh into the hall, with a fox and a purse- 
net, with a cat, both bound at the end of 
a staff; and with them nine or ten couple 
of hounds, with the blowing of hunting- 
horns. And the fox and the cat are by the 
hounds set upon and killed beneath the fire." 
(Poor pussy — you were not fair game!) 
" This sport finished, the Marshal placeth 
them in their several appointed places." 

After the second course " the antientest 
of the Masters of the Revels singeth a song 
with the assistance of others there present; " 
and after some repose and revels, supper is 
served in the hall, and being ended, " the 
Marshall presenteth himself with drums 
afore him, mounted upon a scaffold, borne 



54 The Year's Festivals 

by four men; and goeth three times round 
the harthe, crying out aloud, ' A Lord, a 
Lord ! ' then he descendeth and goeth to 
dance. This done, the Lord of Misrule ad- 
dresseth himself to the Banquet; which 
ended with some minstralsye, mirth, and 
dancing, every man departeth to rest." 

Viewed in the cold light of reason, it 
would appear that it was time for " every 
man to depart to rest," as about the only 
thing left for him to do. 

In " Hesperides," published by Robert 
Herrick in 1648, there is a curious and pleas- 
ing account of the Twelfth-Night proceed- 
ings as we may suppose them to have 
occurred in private families : 

"TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, KING AND QUEEN 

" Now, the mirth comes 

With the cake full of plums, 
Where Beane's the king of the sport here; 

Beside, we must know, 

The Pea also 
Must revell, as Queene, in the court here. 



Twelfth Night 55 

" Begin then to chuse 

This night as ye use, 
Who shall for the present delight here, 

Be a King by the lot, 

And who shall not 
Be Twelfe-day Queene for the night here. 

" Which knowne, let us make 

Joy-sops with the cake ; 
And let not a man then be seen here, 

Who unurged will not drinke 

To the base from the brink 
A health to the King and the Queene here. 

" Next crowne the bowle full 

With gentle lambs -wooll ; 
Adde sugar, nutmeg and ginger, 

With store of ale too; 

And thus ye must doe 
To make the Wassaile a swinger. 

" Give then to the King 

And Queene wassailing; 
And though with ale ye be whet here: 

Yet part ye from hence 

As free from offence 
As when ye innocent met here." 

In Miss Strickland's " Queens of Scot- 
land " is a pretty account of the celebration 



56 The Year's Festivals 

of Twelfth Night, 1563, by Mary, Queen 
of Scots, at Holyrood. They cast lots, and 
Mary Flemming, one of the " Queen's 
Maries," was " Queen of the Bean," and her 
royal mistress dressed her in her own gor- 
geous robes, and, by the report of a wit- 
ness, she was a beautiful sight indeed. He 
says : " Two such sights, in one state, in 
so good accord, I believe was never seen, 
as to behold two> worthy queens, possessing 
without envy, one kingdom, both upon one 
day. My pen staggereth, my hand faileth, 
further to write. . . ." 

Some of the ceremonies of Twelfth Day 
resembled those of Christmas and New 
Year's. Being a continuation of the same 
celebration, it is not strange that there should 
have been no distinct line drawn to confine 
the practices which might have been com- 
mon to many feasts. For instance, " wassail- 
ing the trees " was a ceremony which might 
have been seen on any one of these three 



Twelfth Night 57 

chief days of the Christmas festival, but 
was, at times and places, certainly confined 
to Twelfth Night. 

Thus we find in the glossary to the Ex- 
moor dialect, " Watsail, a drinking-song, 
sung on Twelfth-Day Eve, throwing toast 
to the apple-trees, in order to have a fruitful 
year; which seems to be a relic of the 
heathen sacrifice to Pomona." 

The same was done in Herefordshire un- 
der the name of Wassailing. At the ap- 
proach of evening on the vigil of Twelfth 
Day, the farmers, with their friends and serv- 
ants, meet together, and about six o'clock 
walk out to a field where wheat is growing. 
In the highest part of the ground, twelve 
small fires and one large one are lighted. 
The attendants, headed by the master of the 
family, pledge the company in old cider, 
which circulates freely on these occasions. 
A circle is formed around the large fire, 
when a general shout and hallooing takes 



58 The Year's Festivals 

place, which you hear answered from all the 
adjacent villages and fields. Sometimes fifty 
or sixty of these fires may be seen at a time. 
After the fires begin to die, the company re- 
turn home, where the housewife and her 
maids are preparing a good supper. A large 
cake is always provided with a hole in the 
centre. After supper they all go to the 
wain-house, where they fill a cup with strong 
ale, and the bailiff stands opposite the first 
of the oxen, and pledges him in a toast ; the 
company follow his example. The cake is 
then slipped on the horn of the ox, and then 
some one tickles him to make him toss his 
head. If he throws the cake behind him, 
it becomes the perquisite of the mistress ; if 
he throws it before him, it is the bailiff who 
claims it. 

The people then return to the house and 
find it locked, nor will it open to them till 
some joyous songs are sung. On being ad- 



Twelfth Night 59 

mitted, a scene of mirth and jollity follows, 
which lasts the greater part of the night. 

Another description says : " After they 
have drank a chearful glass to their master's 
health, and success to> the future harvest, 
they return home and feast on cakes made 
of caraways, soaked in cyder, which they 
claim as a reward for their past labor in 
sowing the grain. This seems to resemble 
a custom of the ancient Danes, who, in their 
addresses to their rural deities, emptied, on 
every invocation, a cup in honor of them." 

In Yorkshire it was customary for many 
families, on the Twelfth, Eve of Christmas, 
to' invite their relations, friends, and neigh- 
bors to their houses to play at cards, and 
to partake of a supper of which mince pies 
were indispensable; and after supper the 
wassail-bowl was brought in, and every one 
partook, by skimming out and eating a 
roasted apple, then drinking the healths of 
the company from the bowl. 



60 The Year's Festivals 

The ingredients of the wassail, — ale, 
sugar, nutmeg, roasted apples, and a variety 
of other things, was usually called Lamb's 
Wool, and the night on which it was drank 
was commonly called Wassail Eve. 

We have an ingenuous description of 
Twelfth Night written in 1623 : " This day, 
about the hours from five to ten, yea, in some 
places till midnight well nigh, will be such a 
massacre of spice-bread, that ere the next 
day at noone, a two-penny browne loafe 
will set twenty poore folkes' teeth on edge, 
which hungry humor will hold so violent, 
that a number of good fellowes will not 
refuse to give a statute marchant of all the 
lands and goods they enjoy, for half-a- 
crowne's worth of two^penny pasties. On 
this night much masking in the Strand, 
Cheapside, Holburne, or Fleet-Street." 

A side-light on the festive nature of 
Twelfth Night is cast by the revelations 
of St. Distaff's Day, which is the day fol- 



Twelfth Night 61 

lowing, and Plough Monday. Again, Her- 
rick has given us a glimpse of the life of 
his time in a short poem called " St. Distaff's 
Day; or, The Morrow after Twelfth Day." 
It begins : 

" Partly work and partly play 
Ye must on St. Distaff's Day." 

And ends : 

" And next morrow, every one 
To his owne vocation." 

The idea seems to be to sober off gradually, 
as is further shown by these lines referring 
to Plough Monday, which was the Monday 
following Twelfth Day: 

" Good huswives, whom God hath enriched ynough, 
forget not the feasts that belong to the plough. 

The meaning is only to joy and be glad, 
for comfort with labor, is fit to be had." 

Then is added : 

*' Plough-Munday, next after that Twelfth-Tide is 
past 
bids out, with the plough, the worst husband is last : 



62 The Year's Festivals 

If ploughman get hatchet or whip to the skreene, 
maids loveth their cocke, if no water be seene." 

These lines allude to a custom prevalent 
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
which is explained thus: 

" After Christmas (which formerly, dur- 
ing- the twelve days, was a time of very 
little work), every gentleman feasted the 
farmers, and every farmer their servants 
and task-men. Plough Monday puts them 
in mind oi their business. 

" In the morning the men and maid serv- 
ants strive who shall shew their diligence 
in rising earliest; if the ploughman can 
get his whip, his plough-staff, hatchet, or 
anything that he wants in the field, by the 
fireside, before the maide hath got her kettle 
on, then the maide looseth her Shrovetide 
cock, and it wholly belongs to the men. 
Thus did our forefathers strive to allure 
youth to their duty, and provided innocent 
mirth, as well as labor. On this Plough 



Twelfth Night 63 

Monday they have a good supper and some 
strong drink, that they might not go imme- 
diately out of one extreme into another." 

The celebration of Twelfth Night with 
the elegant and costly Twelfth-cake has 
much declined in the last half-century. In 
former days the confectioners' shops were 
filled with cakes of all sizes for this special 
purpose. One of the oldest shops in London 
is pointed out as being established in the 
time of George I., by Mr. Lucas Birch, who 
was succeeded by his son. The sign, 
" Birch, Birch & Co.," is still over the door. 
The younger Birch was once lord mayor. 
He still retained his shop, however, and 
annually sent a present of a Twelfth-cake 
to the Mansion House, which is just oppo- 
site. 

The custom of masking has come down to 
the present day, and in some places in 
England we hear of an occasional Twelfth- 



64 The Year's Festivals 

cake, and King of the Bean, and of Twelfth- 
Night balls or masques held here and there. 

But the custom is not of any material 
importance in our country. It simply gives 
an excuse for a little variety in the gaiety 
of the winter season, and an occasion to 
call a good time by some new name. 

The youngsters who dance at a Twelfth- 
Night party do not know a wheat-field from 
a corn-bin, and as for " wassailing " an 
apple-tree, a weeping-willow would be likely 
to mislead them. But they can crown one 
of their number king, and deck themselves 
with long ears, or horns, or a butterfly's 
wings, and have as jolly a time as did their 
ancestors in England or France or Ger- 
many, two or three hundred years ago. 



ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 



. ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 

Nature, the Vicar of the Almighty Lord 
That hot, cold, hevie, light, moist and drie 
Hath knit, by even number of accord, 
In easie voice, began to speak and say, 
Foules, take hede of my sentence I pray, 
And for your own ease, in fordring of your nede, 
As fast as I may speak, I will me spede. 
Ye know well, how on St. Valentine's Day, 
By my statute, and through my governance 
Ye doe chese your mates, and after fly away 
With hem, as I pricke you with pleasaunce." 

— Chaucer. 



St. Valentine's £>as 

The Valentine 



ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 

" Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say 
Birds chuse their mates, and couple too, this day: 
But by their flight I never can divine, 
When I shall couple with my valentine." 

— Hereick. 

"To-morrow is St. Valentine's Day, 
All in the morning betime, 
And I a maid at your window 
To be your Valentine." 

Thus sings Polonius' mad daughter as 
the ghost of former St. Valentine Days 
flits through the vacant chambers of her 
mind. She has caught just an instant's 
consciousness of what her words really 
mean; then it escapes her, leaving only an 
impression that, somehow, to-day is the day 
set apart for all true lovers, when they may 
67 



68 The Year's Festivals 

devote themselves to each other by right, 
in the name of the good saint. 

With us the day of St. Valentine means 
hardly more than it did to Ophelia, but 
there is still left an influence which has 
been given to it, by the many generations 
of young lovers, who have made the day 
their own, and who have surrounded it with 
an atmosphere distinctly amorous. In these 
days we get but a breath of this; just a 
suggestion of lavender or a wave of musk 
that still hovers around the old, yellow, 
crumpled love-missives that have survived 
the years, and that our great-grandmothers 
received and blushingly opened, and read 
with palpitating hearts. 

It seems strange that this plain little 
valentine of two hundred years ago should 
have caused a tremor; the paper (s^coarse 
and brownish, not an attempt at ornamenta- 
tion, with just a few lines of crude verse 
written in a stiff, conventional hand. But 



St. Valentine s Day 69 

after all, it was written from the full heart 
of some seventeenth century grandfather 
with much feeling and in dead earnest. 

Another valentine shows just a little more 
freedom, and gives evidence of a more re- 
cent date. This is a circle of paper which 
has been folded and cut into fanciful de- 
signs. 

There is an angular, lacy edge, and four 
hearts cut with points toward the centre, and 
radiating between the hearts are some very 
prettily written things, four flattering sen- 
timents that would please even the demurest 
maiden. 

Then there are others more courageously 
done. There are hearts drawn, modest little 
ones, to be sure, and very unsymmetrical, but 
unmistakably hearts, with a few deformed 
doves flying about, some carrying in their 
bills scrolls and ribbons with little sentiments 
written upon them, while others sit upon 



yo The Year's Festivals 

nothing, and suggest — at least, the artist 
intended to suggest — billing and cooing. 

With specimens of the valentines which 
have been circulated for hundreds of years, 
one needs no calendar to tell the relative 
date. With time grew boldness of thought 
and elaborateness of execution. After the 
heart and dove valentines came those dec- 
orated with larger hearts outlined in red 
ink, and not only outlined but done in solid, 
gory colors all bestuck with arrows. The 
verses attached also grew in fervor, and 
when an ardent lover failed to find expres- 
sion for his feelings in proper original verse, 
he had recourse to> " The Young Man's 
Valentine Writer," a book of verses suited 
to all sorts and conditions of men and 
women, where one could find any or all 
of his sentiments elaborately expressed. 
The first book of this kind was printed in 
1797, but before that time a young fellow 
was sometimes hard put to write his ideas 



St. Valentine's Day Ji 

to suit himself and his lady fair. The lover 
of 1775 was more concerned with the 
thought than with the subtilty of expression, 
when his pent-up feelings burst forth with, 
" O my love, my dear love pretty ! How 
I love you ! " illustrated with a great red 
heart spitted upon an arrow. 

For him who preferred to> write in verse 
it was a fortunate thing that heart and dart 
rhymed so perfectly. They were just the 
words he needed, and were always useful, 
noi matter how much other material he had 
at hand. 

" A loving heart " always went well with 
" A poisoned dart." Then, " Cupid's dart " 
and " My poor heart " made a very pretty 
rhyme. As a little relief, art was sometimes 
ingeniously used with either heart or dart. 
But whatever the combination it must be 
said that the result was very bad art, man- 
gled heart, and pointless dart; but what 
matter so long as the " beautious fair " was 



72 The Year's Festivals 

touched, and consented to be her admirer's 
valentine for life? 

When those useful little books of verses 
came out, then was valentine writing made 
easy for even the most unpoetical ; and cob- 
blers, butchers, bakers, and shoemakers could 
make use of trade terms to advantage. Here 
are some specimens taken from an old book 
printed in England in 1812, called the " Cab- 
inet of Love; or, Cupid's Repository of 
Choice Valentines." 

This is for a young lady who evidently 
thinks it the twenty-ninth instead oi the four- 
teenth of February, as she is proposing in 
true leap year fashion : 

" Kind youth, allow a youthful maid 
To send these trembling lines, 
And speak the secrets of her heart 
On day of Valentine. 
Long has she felt Love's tender flame, 
And long the same concealed; 
Trusting, by time or fortune's aid, 
That flame might be revealed. 



St. Valentine 's Day 73 

And oh ! how happy I would be 

If freed my heart from pain, 

And for my heart you would, in truth, 

Return me yours again." 

From a baker : 

"In these hard times it truly may be said 
That half a loaf's much better than no bread; 
Then surely, pretty dear, you glad may be 
Since sure of loaves enough, to marry me." 

From a butcher: 

" My nice little lamb, 
Your lover I am; 
I've money and got a good trade. 
My shop it is neat, 
My house is complete: 
All ready for you, my sweet maid. 

" On dainties so fine 
Each day we will dine 
And act as you please, your will shall 

be mine. 
So your answer I pray, 
And hope you'll say aye, 
And bless with your heart your true 
Valentine." 



74 The Year 's Festivals 

This is for those who like the play of 
heart, dart, and dart, heart: 

" Dear girl, I'm up to ears in love ! 
The fact a thousand follies prove: 

Yes, yes, I feel the dart. 
Well, now I'm wounded, give the cure, 
. Thou'rt not a cruel girl, I'm sure, 
So try to ease my heart. 

" O, far from me those lightnings dart : 
On others bid thy beauty shine; 
Beyond the hopes of this sad heart 
I view that peerless form to pine." 

The thought is somewhat confused, but 
the rhyme is there, and would do> for a young 
lady who was in no way critical. 

Here we have the variation of art and 
heart, in the lines to a coquette: 

"Whilst ev'ry shepherd sings her praise, 
'Tis mine of Betsy to complain: 
Made a poor pris'ner while I gaze, 
I feel in ev'ry smile a chain. 

"And are you then a thing of art, 
Seducing all and loving none? 
And have I strove to gain a heart 
Which ev'ry shepherd thinks his own? " 



St. Valentine's Day 75 

This form for a shoemaker's valentine is 
given with its answer : 

" A piece of charming kid you are 
As e'er mine eyes did see, 
No calf-skin smooth that e'er I saw 
Can be compared with thee. 

"You are my all, do not refuse 
To let us tack together; 
But let us join, my Valentine, 
Like sole and upper leather. 

" ANSWER 

" My merry friend, 
You've gained your end; 

My heart is truly thine: 
I do not choose 
For to refuse 

A constant Valentine." 

This seems unfair to' the young lady, who 
might decline to accept the cobbler; there 
should have been a verse for her. Now she 
must refuse to answer, resort to plain prose, 
or accept him in spite of herself, by using the 
prepared answer because there is no other. 



7 6 The Year's Festivals 

The use of these little manuals was nec- 
essarily short-lived. They served a purpose 
for a time, then people looked about for 
something more original. 

For many years after the manufactured 
valentine came into' vogue, valentine sending 
was at its height. Everybody could have 
one for a price, from the plain little sheet, 
with its wood-cut and single sentiment, to 
wonderfully frilled and furbelowed lace 
paper affairs, which unfolded many times, 
with a fresh love-message surprising you at 
every turn. 

There was no necessity for the simple, 
home-made expressions of esteem; yet, in 
those gaudy machine-made ones, was lost 
that bit of personal essence which must have 
been infused into those made by the young 
men and maidens who had SO' much of them- 
selves to express. 

What comparison could possibly be drawn 
between these ready-to-wear kind, and the 



St. lflalentine'8 2>as 

Sam Weller Inditing His 

Valentine 



St. Valentine 's Day 77 

heartfelt emotions so laboriously expressed 
by the immortal Sam Weller, written on a 
sheet of gilt-edge letter-paper, with a hard- 
nibbed pen warranted not to splutter. 
Dickens portrays his painstaking efforts 
very vividly, as he draws up the table in 
front of the fire, spreads his paper out care- 
fully, squares his elbows, dips the pen in 
the ink, and prepares to pour out the senti- 
ments of his soul to' Mary, Housemaid at 
Mr. Nupkin's, Mayor's, Ipswich, Suffolk. 
The appearance on the scene, an hour and 
a half later, of the elder Mr. Weller, some- 
what embarrassed poor " Samivel," but he 
explained that he was writing a " walentine," 
and offered to read it. Weller, Sr., ad- 
mitted to being horrified, but under the 
soothing influence of his pipe, ordered his 
son to " fire away." Thus encouraged, this 
is what he read, supplemented with many 
suggestions and corrections from his parent ; 
and a good bit of hard studying to make 



78 The Year's Festivals 

out his own intentions through the numerous 
blots : 

"Lovely — " 

This was more than his father could stand 
without some stimulant, SO' the waiting-maid 
was called and received the order, " A double 
glass o' the inwariable, my dear." Again 
Sam began, with a very theatrical air : 

" Lovely creetur i feel myself ashamed 
and completely circumscribed in a dressin' 
of you, for you are a nice gal and nothin' 
but it," which having been approved by his 
parent as " a wery pretty sentiment," Sam 
continued : 

" Afore I see you I thought all women 
was alike, but now I find what a reg'lar 
soft-headed inkred'lous turnip I must ha' 
been, for there ain't nobody like you though 
I like you better than nothin' at all." 

Sam stopped long enough to remark that 
he thought best to> make that rather strong, 



St Valentine 's Day 79 

and, having received a nod of approval, re- 
sumed : 

" So I take the privilidge of the day, Mary 
my dear, as the genTm'n in difficulties did 
wen he walked out of a Sunday, to tell you 
that the first and only time I see you, your 
likeness was took on my heart in much 
quicker time and brighter colors than ever 
a likeness was took by the profeel macheen 
(wich p'r'aps you may have heard on, Mary 
my dear), altho' it does finish a portrait and 
put the frame and glass on complete with 
a hook at the end to hang it up by, and all 
in two' seconds and a quarter. 

" Except of me, Mary my dear, as your 
walentine, and think over what I've said. 
My dear Mary, I will now conclude," and 
after much controversy over what the sig- 
nature should be, he compromised by signing 
himself " Your love sick, Pickwick." 

It is strange that a day so distinctly 
marked in its character should have so vague 



So The Year's Festivals 

an origin. Archbishop Wheatly connects the 
celebration of the day directly with St. Val- 
entine, and says that " he was a man of 
most admirable parts, and was so> famous 
for his love and charity that the custom of 
choosing valentines upon his festival took 
its form from thence." Another says that 
the martyred priest of Rome seems to have 
had nothing at all to do with the matter 
of observances which originated in obscurity 
like many other ceremonial days. Yet an- 
other speaks of St. Valentine as an austere 
saint, and cannot reconcile the festive observ- 
ance of this day with such a character. 
Some other one, who seems to know all 
about it, has given us a story of the banish- 
ment of the saint and his connection with 
St. Valentine's Day. 

There ruled in the palace at Rome the 
Emperor Claudius. He was called Claudius 
the Cruel. Near the palace, in -a great Greek 
temple, there stood a high priest. This 



St. Valentine 's Day $ I 

priest, whose name was Valentine, was pop- 
ular with the whole city, and so great was 
his popularity that his church was crowded, 
and around the altars and fires knelt all the 
wise people of Rome. Plebeians and patri- 
cians, young and old, rich and poor, igno- 
rant and wise, all went to learn of Valentine 
and be blessed by him. 

In the midst of this popularity there arose 
wars outside of Rome, and the emperor 
called his citizens forth to battle. 

But the wars continued year after year, 
and many were loath to go. The married 
ones did not want to leave their families, 
and those who were engaged to be married 
openly demurred at the thought of going 
away from their sweethearts. 

On hearing this the emperor became very 
angry, and sent forth a decree that, from 
that time on, there should be no more mar- 
riages. Not only should there be no 
weddings, but those whoi were engaged to 



82 The Year's Festivals 

be married should break their engage- 
ments. 

At this the young girls died of love, and 
the young men went to their work by day 
with a moody expression of countenance and 
with heavy hearts. Of what use to draw 
water and hew stone, and bake the vases in 
the potteries, if there could be no marriages ? 

When the good priest Valentine heard of 
this he was very sad. One day, quite se- 
cretly, he united a couple standing under the 
sacred altars. Then others came to him, and 
quietly he wedded them. And still others, 
and others, until the marriage business in 
old Rome was as good as it was before the 
decree went forth forbidding all weddings. 

At last the news reached the palace, and 
the emperor, hearing it, was exceedingly 
wroth. " Go> take that man Valentine," said 
he, " and cast him into a dungeon. I will 
have no man in Rome who refuses to obey 
my commands." 



St. Valentine's Day 83 

The emperor's counsellors pleaded with 
him in vain. " Be careful," said they, " for 
Valentine has many and powerful friends, 
and there may be trouble if they should rise 
up against you." 

But Claudius would not listen, and Valen- 
tine was dragged from the altar while in the 
very act o>f uniting a couple, and taken to 
prison. 

There he languished and died, for not all 
the efforts of his friends could free him. 

But each year, on the anniversary of his 
birth, the people met and honored his name. 
They talked about him, his life, his work, 
and his good deeds. Many were married 
on this night, for they said : "In that way 
we shall best keep his memory green." 
This is a very pretty theory, and appeals to 
those who like to' have the origin in keep- 
ing with the celebration of the day/^but the 
probable origin of St. Valentine's Day is 
the ancient feast in honor of Pan and Juno, 



84 The Year 's Festivals 

held by the early Romans during the month 
of February. 

The Christian leaders persuaded their con- 
verts to allow them to substitute St. Valen- 
tine for pagan Pan and Juno>, and the date 
of the saint's death, the fourteenth of Feb- 
ruary, as the day of celebration. 

The new name and date did not disturb 
the people so long as the festivities remained 
the same, and until a few years ago the 
sentiment, though changing its expression 
according to the age and nationality of the 
people, was as strong as in the early Chris- 
tian times, 

A favorite St. Valentine custom of two 
hundred years ago was the drawing from a 
kind of lottery, when the names of the young 
men and women of the company were taken 
from a box. The maiden whose name was 
drawn, was to< be the valentine of the young 
man who drew it for that day. 

Sometimes they remained each other's 



St. Valentine's Day 85 

valentine for life, for there was a certain 
superstitious regard for this chance selec- 
tion; and though not altogether binding, 
every influence of association tended to make 
it so. Whoever was first looked upon by one 
of the opposite sex, was considered bound, 
for the day, at least, to be that person's valen- 
tine, and all the superstitions of the age 
helped on the cause of real and would-be 
lovers. 

Gay tells us of one country maiden whose 
head was filled with this idea, yet she did 
not neglect her milking: 

"Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind 
Their paramours with mutual chirpings find, 
I early rose, just at the break of day, 
Before the sun had chased the stars away; 
Afield I went, amid the morning dew, 
To milk my kine (for so should housewives do). 
Thee first I spied — and the first swain we see 
In spite of Fortune shall our true love be." 

Another young lady thought it no sin 
to help fortune in favoring her, for in an 



86 The Year's Festivals 

old magazine of more than a hundred years 
ago, The Connoisseur, of 1754, we find this 
confession of heroic self-mortification. 

" Last Friday was St. Valentine's Day, 
and the night before I got five bay leaves 
and. pinned four on the corners of my pillow, 
and the fifth to the middle; and then if I 
dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we 
should be married before the year was out. 
But to make it more sure I boiled an egg 
hard and took out the yolk and filled it with 
salt; and when I went to bed ate it 
shell and all, without speaking or drinking 
after it. We also wrote our lovers' names 
upon bits of paper, and rolled them up in 
clay and put them into water ; and the first 
that rose up was to be our valentine. Would 
you think it? Mr. Blossom was my man. 
I lay abed and shut my eyes all the morning, 
till he came to our house, for I would not 
have seen another man before him for all 
the world." 



St. Valentine's Day 87 

In Western Europe there is a custom for 
the fourteenth of February, when it is con- 
sidered not indelicate for a maiden to pay- 
addresses to any man whom she might par- 
ticularly favor. 

It is quite certain that these Valentine's 
Day ceremonies, pointing - SO' obviously to 
one result, existed in those days when all 
the daughters of the family were supposed to 
marry, and no' other career was even thought 
of. 

It was quite possible and well understood 
that one must take advantage of all the fa- 
vors which St. Valentine had to> bestow, for 
did he not hold the fate of lovers in his 
hand? 

Mr. Pepys writes in his diary on St. Val- 
entine's Day in 1667 : " This morning came 
up to my wife's bedside little Will Mercer 
to' be her valentine, and brought her name 
written upon blue paper in gold letters, done 
by himself, very pretty; and we were both 



88 The Year's Festivals 

well pleased with it. But I am also this 
year my wife's valentine; and it will cost 
me five pounds; but that I must have laid 
out if we had not been valentines." On 
another fourteenth of February he writes: 
" Up, being called up by Mercer, who came to 
be my valentine, and I did give her a guinny 
in gold for her valentine gift. 

" There comes Roger Pepys betimes, and 
comes to my wife, for her to be his valentine. 
I was also, by agreement; and this year I 
find it is likely to' cost four or five pounds 
in a ring for her, which she desires." 

From this little glimpse into his private 
life, we see that for Mr. Pepys, St. Valen- 
tine's Day was not without its financial bur- 
den, though he seems to have met his obli- 
gations cheerfully. 

In the essays of Elia, Charles Lamb 
touches this day of universal love in his 
delicately humorous way : 

" Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop 



St. Valentine 's Day 89 

Valentine! Great immortal go-between! 
Who and what manner of person art thou? 

" Art thou but a name typifying the rest- 
less principle, which impels poor humans to 
seek perfection in union? or wert thou in- 
deed a mortal prelate with thy tippet and 
thy apron on, and decent lawn sleeves? 

' ' Mysterious personage ! like unto thee, 
assuredly there was no other mitred father 
in the calendar. Thou comest attended with 
thousands and tens of thousands of little 
loves, and the air is ' Brushed with the kiss 
of nestling wings.' 

" This is the day on which those charming 
little missives called valentines cross and 
intercross each other at every turning. 

" Not many sounds in life exceed in inter- 
est the knock at the door. It ' gives a very 
echo' to' the throne where Hope is seated.' 
But its issues seldom answer to this oracle 
within. It is seldom that just the person 
we want to see comes. But- of all the clamor- 



go The Year 's Festivals 

ous visitations, the welcomest in expectation 
is the sound that ushers in a valentine. 

" When letters cease to be written (but 
not till then) , when love shall be no more — 
then shall this amorous and holy-day darken 
and grow common; then shall it be a mere 
vulgar root (now how full of rare and sweet 
flowers ! ) in the wilderness of clays — a gar- 
den in the deserts of time. Valentines per- 
vade all space, like light." 

However we may observe the day oi St. 
Valentine, its character has been stamped by 
the generations who entered into its cele- 
bration sincerely, joyously, spontaneously; 
and however indifferent we may be, we can- 
not escape that influence which is the in- 
heritance of years gone by, when swains be- 
came gallants, and the humblest maiden was 
made happy with a devoted valentine for at 
least a day. 

ff we do not resort to the simple primitive 
expressions o<f our fancy used by our fore- 



St. Valentine 's Day 9 1 

fathers, we certainly have sentiments to ex- 
press which we may do as delicately as we 
choose ; and it will do> us no harm to partake 
of the old-time fragrance, though we cele- 
brate only with musing on what has been. 

Yet, in spite of the hopeful prophecy of 
Elia, it is true that now, almost everywhere, 
St. Valentine's Day is (outwardly, at least) 
a much degenerated festival. Though it still 
has its fascination for children and a few 
older people, it cannot be said that the day is 
honored with much celebration. Those 
highly colored caricatures and burlesque 
verses, miscalled comic valentines, which 
carry hideousness and unkindness, are not 
to be considered for a moment in the St. 
Valentine idea of loving thought, truthfully 
expressed. These so-called valentines are a 
product of modern commercialism without 
regard for sentiment or legend, and are sent 
only by those who fail to grasp even a 



92 The Year 's Festivals 

shadow of the real meaning and intention of 
this saint's day. 

Elia said, " I love to keep all festivals, 
to taste all feast offerings," and he entered 
into the full thought and spirit of the occa- 
sion when he wrote his first valentine, which 
was certainly written with no> other idea than 
to give pleasure, and is dedicated to that 
" fair siren with a low, melodious voice." 

" Why is the rose of the East so fond 
Of the bird on the near palm-tree? 
Tis because he sings like the murmurings 
Of the river that runs so bright and free. 

"And why doth the paradise creature sing 
To the silent and clear blue air, 
When many a sound from the woods around 
Doth speak like a spell to entice him there? 

" 'Tis because the blush of his love is rich, 
And richer grow his glances gay: 
'Tis because the flower which fills the hour 
With beauty, would pine were he away. 

" Yet what is the red of the rose to thine ? 
And what is the nightingale's soft love-eye? 



St. Valentine's Day 93 

Thy glance is as bright as the clear star light 
And the blush of thy cheek hath a deeper dye. 

Therefore, and because of thy reed-rich song 
May vie with the best of the Muses mine, 
Do I, a poet (though none may know it), 
Choose thee, fair girl, for my Valentine." 



ALL FOOLS' DAY 



ALL FOOLS' DAY 

" I must have liberty 
Withal, as large a charter as the wind, 
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have; 
And they that are most galled with my folly, 
They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so? 
The 'why' is plain as way to parish church: 
He that a fool doth very wisely hit 
Doth very foolishly, although he smart, 
Not to seem senseless of the bob : if not, 
The wise man's folly is anatomized 
Even by the squandering glances of the fool." 

— As You Like It. 

" Wit, and it be thy will, put me into good fooling ! 
Those that think they have thee, do very oft prove 
fools ; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may pass 
for a wise man : For what says Quinapalus ? Better 
a witty fool than a foolish wit." 

— Twelfth Night. 

" Nay, I'll come ; if I lose a scruple of this sport, 
let me be boiled to death with melancholy." 

— Twelfth Night. 

"The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely 
what wise men do foolishly." 

— As You Like It. 



ALL FOOLS' DAY 

" Mr. , you look wise. Pray correct that error." 

— Elia. 
" I confess 
I am not very wise, and yet I find 
A fool, so be he parcel knave, in court 
May flourish and grow rich." 

— Massinger's Calandrino. 

What man is there who would not rather 
commit sin than to appear ridiculous in the 
eyes of his neighbors, or what man through 
an uncomfortable memory makes himself 
more unhappy than he who has been fooled 
by another? 

Deception may be varied to touch every 
chord in human nature, and the whole gamut 
of sensibility may be easily played upon, 
if one skilfully understands the art of fool- 
ing. 

97 



98 The Year's Festivals 

From the days of Eden, when the devil 
outwitted Eve, and Eve deluded Adam, to 
the present-day schoolboy who pins a placard 
inscribed " Kick me " on the coat-tails of 
his conscientious teacher, the ingenuity of 
the race has ever been active in inventing 
new methods by which one man could suc- 
cessfully fool his brother. 

Whether by slow, premeditated planning, 
carefully worked out, or by spontaneous 
mirth-creating methods, the practice is for- 
ever carried on. 

Some one has been bold enough to' say that 
people like to> be deceived; and there is 
usually some accommodating person ready 
to oblige the public. If he is shrewd enough 
to succeed in pleasing, no matter how grave 
the hoax, he is considered a clever fellow, 
and his deception is excused. Should he 
happen to strike the wrong chord, or if his 
chord be slightly out of tune with the popular 



All Fools' Day 99 

ear, he is then simply called an ignominious 
fellow, and should be put into jail. 

The typical fool is the merry fool, the 
mirth-creating, laughing fool ; and one who 
can fool others and at the same time provoke 
no resentment. All men are born with some 
sense of humor as they are born with a con- 
science; and the man who cannot laugh is 
as much a moral monstrosity as one whose 
conscience is so latent as to> be invisible. 

How highly mirth was esteemed in very 
ancient times is shown by Lycurgus, who 
raised an image of Laughter and caused it 
to be worshipped as a god. " He loved," he 
said, " to see people merry." 

Even as early as the fifth century before 
the Christian era, people understood the 
necessity of being amused, and making fun 
had become a profession. We have the epi- 
taph of a heathen jester whose wit was 
evidently not of the most wholesome kind : 
" Having drunk much, eaten much, and 

LofC. 



loo The Year's Festivals 

spoken much evil, here I lie, Timocreon of 
Rhodes." 

So the fool, ancient and modern, the pro- 
fessional, the self-made, and occasional fool, 
is and has always been, everywhere present. 
That a day should have been set apart for 
their especial honor seems reasonable enough 
since, as Dickens said, " They are so numer- 
ous, and fill so man}'' positions oi dignity and 
importance ; " but why the first of April was 
chosen as the Feast of Fools no one seems 
to know. 

Antiquarians have puzzled themselves and 
others with attempts to account for the cus- 
tom of fool-making, but their researches have 
established nothing except that the practice 
is very ancient and very general. 

Some of the theories advanced by serious 
men of learning would make even a fool 
think. It must have been an April fool who 
said that his day was established by Noah, 
who made the mistake of sending out the 



All Fools' Day 101 

dove; and to send a person upon a sleeveless 
errand simply follows the example of the 
patriarch who sent the bird on a useless 
message. 

Another ingenious person says that per- 
haps All Fools' is derived from that transac- 
tion between the Romans and Sabines. The 
Roman soldiers during the infancy of their 
city wanted wives, and rinding that they 
could not obtain the neighboring women by 
peaceable addresses, resolved to make use of 
strategy. Accordingly, the Romans insti- 
tuted certain games to be performed on the 
first of April, in honor of Neptune. Upon 
hearing of this, the bordering inhabitants 
with their whole families flocked to Rome 
to see the mighty celebration, and thereupon 
the Romans seized a great number of the 
Sabine women for wives. This theory is 
not a pleasant one, and we refuse to tolerate 
a brutal practical joke as the origin of the 
day, as we do> in its annual celebration. 



102 The Year's Festivals 

Some one, not satisfied with existing 
theories, propounded a new one, which places 
the origin of All Fools' Day for England 
among the ancient Britons, at the " Festum 
Fatuorum." The early Christians, in order 
to attract the pagans to a better worship, 
humored their prejudices by yielding to their 
customs, when they did not interfere with 
the fundamental gospel doctrines. This 
proved an excellent method to prevent the 
people from returning to their old religion. 

At this feast, part of the jollity of the 
season was a burlesque election of mock pope, 
mock cardinals and bishops, attended with a 
thousand ridiculous ceremonies, gambols, 
and antics, grotesque attitudes, and singing 
of ludicrous anthems. 

All the ceremonies intentionally alluded 
to the exploded pretensions of the Druids, 
whom these sports were calculated to expose 
to scorn and derision. This Feast of Fools 
had its designed effect, and contributed more 



Bit fools' 5>ag 

Village Frolic on April 
First 



All Fools' Day 103 

toward the extermination of the heathen be- 
liefs than the combined force of fire and 
sword, both of which were unsparingly used 
in the persecution of those who held them. 

The Romans had a similar feast, as we 
learn from Plutarch, who asks : " Why do 
they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools ? " 
He then answers himself by saying : " Either 
because they allowed this day (as Juba tells 
us) to those who' could not ascertain their 
own tribes, or because they had permitted 
those who had missed the celebration of the 
Formacalia in their proper tribes along with 
the rest of the people, either from business, 
absence, or ignorance, to> hold their festival 
apart on this day." 

So evidently this celebration among the 
Romans was instituted for the unfortunate 
ones who had missed the pleasures of the 
great national feast held earlier in the season. 

In various parts of Europe a day of fools 
is observed, and among the Hindus, fool- 



104 The Year's Festivals 

making is in full force at their celebration 
of the Huli festival, which is kept the thirty- 
first of March. This is one of the most 
ancient of Hindu celebrations, and high and 
low join in it. Even those of the highest 
rank take delight in making Huli fools, and 
carry a joke so far as to send letters, making 
appointments in the names of persons known 
to be away from home on a certain date. 

And so we find that in nearly all parts 
of the earth there exists a day which corre- 
sponds to our All Fools', and though 
there has been a great display of learning, 
and many theories upon the subject, there 
is no satisfactory or even plausible conclu- 
sion as to' the origin of this day. We must 
therefore accept without much questioning 
this rhyme found in Poor Robin's Almanack 
for 1760, — 

" The first of April, some do say, 
Is set apart for All Fools' Day; 
But why the people call it so 
Nor I, nor they themselves, do know," — 



All Fools' Day 105 

and believe that according to existing con- 
ditions it was necessary to appoint a day 
for the general hoaxing of man by mankind. 

When we consider the divine origin of 
fools, it is not surprising that they should 
be thought worthy of all honor. An old 
legend tells us that fools were made by the 
gods, and were the product of necessity. 

It is said that Zeus found Olympus ex- 
ceedingly dull, and complained that among 
all the gods there was not one fool 
with wit enough to> keep the rest cheerful. 
" Father," said Mercury, " the diversion may 
be found for us on earth; for look! do 
you not see that crowd of folk in holiday 
gear, dancing, singing, and eating? I think 
it would be great sport to send a shower to 
spoil their finery." " Thy thought is witless 
as it stands," said the Olympian, " but it 
may be improved. Let that serene priest 
below tell the people that a shower is about 
to descend, but that it shall wet only fools," 



106 The Year's Festivals 

The sound of thunder aroused the priest, 
who made the required announcement to 
the people. A philosopher, leaning against 
his door-post, on hearing it, withdrew and 
shut himself into his study, but not another 
person prepared to avoid the storm. Each 
man waited to see the fools drenched, and 
so every man was wet to the skin. When 
the sun shone, the philosopher sauntered into 
the market-place, while the soaked ones 
hailed him with " Fool." They pelted him 
with stones, tore his gown, plucked his 
beard, and loaded him with vile tongue- 
twisting terms. But the wise philosopher 
said to the crowd : " Wait for a single 
minute, and I will prove to you that I am 
not such a fool as I look ; " and, casting his 
eyes skyward, he said : " O wise father of 
the witty and the witless, send down upon 
me a deluge; wet me to the skin even as 
these fools are wet; make me as great a 
fool as my neighbors, and help me, in con- 



All Fools' Day 107 

sequence of being a fool, to live at peace 
among fools." The shower fell, and the 
dripping sage rose from his knees wittier 
than before. This request with its result 
so pleased Jupiter that he said to> his attend- 
ant divinities : " Children, let us drink to 
him. Here's a health to the first of fools ! " 
And since that time folly has never left the 
earth. 

A later version of the story adds that 
the sage fool was rewarded for his sagacity 
by being appointed jester at the court of 
a great king, and that he was the father 
of all the fools, who for centuries were im- 
portant members of the royal courts. These 
clever fellows were always useful and ever 
welcome, especially if their kings happened 
to be particularly stupid ones. If the jester 
caused laughter the royal master would 
stroke his beard, and modestly smile, as 
though he himself had said the good things 
uttered by his fool. 



108 The Year's Festivals 

It was the privilege of the professional 
all-the-year-round fool to exercise very great 
license of speech, and many unpleasant 
truths have been told to tyrants who would 
have punished the speaker with death had 
he been a courtier. Kings of all times have 
been amused by their jesters, even with 
jokes at their own expense ; but occasionally 
the royal patron was in no mood to hear 
free speech, and sometimes a poor fool lost 
his head for an untimely jest. But usually 
nothing the jester might say, whatever he 
might mean, was ever taken as serious. 
" There is no slander," says Olivia in 
Twelfth Night, " in an allowed fool ; " and 
the clown also defines his own standing 
when he says : " I am not her fool, but 
her corrupter of words." 

Viola portrays all that a fool should be 
in the words : 

" This fellow's wise enough to play the fool ; 
And to do that well craves a kind of wit: 



All Fools Day 1 09 

He must observe their mood on whom he jests, 

The quality of persons and the time; 

And like the haggard, check at every feather 

That comes before his eye. This is a practice, 

As full of labor as a wise man's art: 

For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit; 

But wise men, folly fallen, taint their wit." 

Like the fools of later years, these jesters 
have served to kill time for their dull com- 
panions. When society was without books, 
and supported a class of idle, aimless nobles, 
it learned what it could, and amused itself 
as it might with the help of fools, dwarfs, 
and jesters. 

The progress of modern times has killed 
neither mirth, jests, nor jesters, but it has 
given every man the right and ability to be 
his own fool. Why, then, should we not 
have at least one day in the calendar in 
which to exercise our particular capabilities 
in the direction of fool-making? 

What would this man have done had 
he not been given the opportunity to add 



HO The Year's Festivals 

his splendid contribution each year? "A 
neighbor of mine," says the Spectator, " who 
is a haberdasher by trade, and a very shallow 
and conceited fellow, makes his boasts that 
for ten years successively he has made not 
less than a hundred fools." This is truly 
an incredible record. 

The English Earl of Orford has said of 
April Fools' Day : " The oldest tradition 
affirms that such an infatuation attends the 
first day of April as no foresight can escape, 
no' vigilance can defeat. Deceit is success- 
ful that day out of the mouths of babes and 
sucklings. Grave citizens have been bit upon 
it ; usurers have lent money on bad security ; 
experienced matrons have married very dis- 
appointed young fellows; mathematicians 
have missed the longitude; alchymists the 
philosophers' stone; and politicians prefer- 
ment on that day. What confusion will 
not follow if the great body of the nation 
are disappointed of their peculiar holiday ! " 



All Fools' Day III 

Under the cloak of folly a good turn has 
been rendered to wise men, and kings are 
sometimes fooled by those who' are not court 
jesters. By feigning want of wit, the Wise 
Men o»f Gotham favored themselves and 
completely hoodwinked their king. King 
John of England, so the story is told, was 
marching toward Nottingham intending to 
pass through Gotham meadow. The vil- 
lagers believed that the ground over which 
a king passed became, forever after, a public 
road; and not being minded to part with 
their meadow so cheaply, they caused the 
king to be led around another way. En- 
raged at their incivility, he sent to inquire 
into their rudeness, intending to punish them 
severely. These wise men^ on hearing that 
messengers were coming from the king, de- 
cided to save themselves by fooling the king 
again, by making fools of themselves. When 
the king's servants arrived they found some 
of the inhabitants trying to drown an eel 



112 The Year's Festivals 

in a pond ; some dragging a cart tx> the top 
of a barn to protect it from the sun's rays; 
some rolling cheeses down-hill, expecting 
that they would find their way to Notting- 
ham market, and some trying to hedge in a 
cuckoo which had perched upon a bush. 

They were all at work at such foolish 
capers that the king's officers decided that 
it was a village of fools, and consequently 
unworthy of his Majesty's notice. Some 
skeptical poet has written his opinion of this 
thirteenth-century story : 

" Tell me no more of Gotham fools, 
Or of their eels in little pools, 

Which they, we're told, were drowning: 
Ncr of their carts drawn up on high 
When King John's men were standing by, 

To keep the wood from browning. 

" Nor of their cheese shoved down the hill, 
Nor of the cuckoo sitting still, 

While it they hedged around ; 
Such tales of them have long been told, 
By prating boobies young and old, 
In drunken circles crowned. 



All Fools' Day 113 

"The fools are those who thither go, 
To see the cuckoo bush, I trow, 

The wood, the barn, the pools; 
For such are seen both here and there, 
And passed by without a sneer, 

By all but errant fools." 

The April Fool idea is so strong in some 
countries that only a bold man would start 
an enterprise on the first of April; and to 
be married on that day would bring down all 
sorts of jeers on the heads of the courageous 
couple. To be sure, Napoleon I. and Maria 
Louisa were married on All Fools' Day, but 
we know that Napoleon was not to be hin- 
dered in his plans by any ordinary obstacle ; 
and his knowledge of French ridicule and 
the probable ill-natured jokes of Parisian 
farceurs had no effect. 

It is said that the Duke of Lorraine, with 
his wife 2 made their escape while the French 
officers were enjoying an April fool. The 
duke and duchess, who had been in captivity 
at Nantes, disguised themselves as peasants : 



114 The Year's Festivals 

one holding a hod on his shoulder, and the 
other carrying a basket of rubbish on her 
back, they passed through the gates of the 
city at an early hour. A woman, thinking 
that she recognized the persons, ran to a 
guard to give notice to the sentry, but the 
soldier cried, " April fool ! " The governor, 
to whom the story was told as a jest, was 
suspicious, and ordered the fact to be proved. 
But by this time it was too late, as the duke 
and duchess were far out of reach. However 
successful this attempt may have been, it is 
not always best to try to fool those in author- 
ity. It is better even to avoid the appearance 
o>f trying. A French lady was accused of 
stealing a watch, but she persistently denied 
the charge, saying that it could not be found 
among her possessions, and urged that some 
one might be sent to search for it. The 
officer, being an obliging man, sent a subor- 
dinate, who found the property and brought 
it to the magistrate; but the lady, remember- 



All Fools' Day 115 

ing that it was the first of April, laughed 
long and loudly, and said : " This is a rare 
joke. What excellent April fools you all 
are ! " The dull officer failed to see the joke, 
but thought that somehow the lady was the 
April fool, and felt sure that such as she 
had better be confined; so he sent her to 
jail till the next first of April, thinking that 
a year of meditation might teach her to suit 
her jokes to her company. 

The Scotch,, who dearly love a practical 
joke, are not content with a simple fool. 
There must be complications, and the laugh 
is always in proportion to the trouble given. 
They delight to send a neighbor, not upon 
a single sleeveless errand, but as many as 
he will before finding out that he is being 
hoaxed. Some one sends simple Sandy to 
a neighbor a couple of miles away, with a 
note containing the words : 

" This is the first of April ; 
Hunt the gowk another mile." 



1 1 6 The Year 's Festivals 

The waggish neighbor says to Sandy : " I 
cannot supply my friend with the hoe he 
wants, but you will find one at neighbor 
MacGowan's." So off goes Sandy a mile 
beyond to MacGowan, who. being also a 
wag, sends him to a third neighbor for the 
imaginary hoe. It is always reasoned that 
the number of miles travelled by Sandy that 
day depends solely upon how much of a fool 
he is; and a successful affair of this kind 
will keep the rustics in fun for a week; and 
Sandy's spirits will be made very heavy. 
Sandy may not have been a fool at all ; only 
a simple confiding gowk, who, with bitter 
results, has accommodated his neighbors. 

To make a successful April fool there 
must be nothing malicious, nor should there 
be made a definite or false assertion. To 
state positively that there is a great hole 
in the back of a man's coat is no joke, but a 
lie; but by dexterous suggestion you must 
modestly hint, for his own good, of course, 



All Fools Day 117 

that there are several little holes in his coat. 
The man is horrified (he has just called 
upon his fiancee), and when he cries, 
"What! where? Bramble-bush, barbed- 
wire ! " you quietly say, " Buttonholes," 
and wonder if it is really necessary to add, 
"April fool!" 

The old-fashioned schoolboy tricks were 
good in this respect. You were sent to the 
cobbler's shop for strap-oil; you were not 
told anything as to the nature of the article, 
neither was it positively stated that the cob- 
bler really sold it. If your reason did not 
lead you to make inquiries as to a cobbler's 
stock in trade, or if you had not taken the 
trouble to find out the day of the month, 
you were richly rewarded by a strapping 
which the jolly cobbler was privileged to 
give. 

Then it should have been clear to even the 
simple-minded that on the first of April 
" gander ile " was not an article of com- 



1 1 8 The Year 's Festivals 

merce. If it did not occur to you to ask 
for goose oil, which every croupy boy knew, 
you must certainly be regarded as an April 
fool. 

There is some little satisfaction when a 
boy has successfully fooled his playmate, 
but his fullest delight is not reached till he 
has brought his superior in position and in- 
tellect to feel how painful and degrading is 
the position of an April fool. No man really 
likes a joke at his own expense, even when it 
happens to be a good one; but to be sold in 
the presence of others, by young gamins who, 
with exultant whoops of triumph, have fled 
before you, gives a man a shock that re- 
mains with him the rest of the day. He 
has the feeling that he is branded with the 
words " April fool " in thirty-six line type ; 
everybody must see it, and no intellectual 
superiority, or contempt for the first of April 
with its vulgar practices, will avail him. 

The spirit of the day touches all, young 



Bll fools 1 H>a$ 



"The April Fool' 



All Fools' Day 119 

and old, in. high or low station. In the 
Bairnsla Foak Annual for 1844, some gowk 
says : " Ah think ah needant tell you at 
this iz April-fooil Day, cos, if yor like me, 
yol naw all abaght it, for ah wonce sent a 
this day to a stationer's shop for't seckand 
edishan a Cock Robin, an a haupath a crock- 
adile quills; Ah thowt fasure, at when ah 
axt for am, at chap it shop ad a splittin t' 
caanter stop we' laffin." 

Goldsmith, in the " Vicar of Wakefield," 
describing the manners of some rustics, tells 
us that among other customs which they 
followed they " showed their wit on the first 
of April." This surely could not have been 
in the locality of Bairnsla. 

We know that even Dean Swift did not 
let All Fools' Day pass unnoticed, for, in 
his " Journal to Stella," he enters under 
March thirty-first, 171 3, that he, Doctor 
Arbuthnot, and Lady Masham had been 



120 The Year's Festivals 

amusing themselves that evening by " con- 
triving a lie for to-morrow." 

Elia, writing on the first of April, has 
given us a humorous touch quite in sym- 
pathy with what the spirit of All Fools' 
should be. After many witty flights, he 
says : " To descend and not to protract our 
Fools banquet — for I think the second of 
April is not many hours distant — in sober 
verity I will confess a truth to thee, reader. 
I love a Fool as naturally as if I were kith 
and kin toi him. When a child I read those 
Parables, not guessing their involved wis- 
dom. I had more yearnings towards that 
simple architect that built his house on the 
sand, than I entertained for his more cau- 
tious neighbor; I grudged the hard censure 
pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept 
his talent; and, prizing their simplicity be- 
yond the more provident, and, to my appre- 
hension, somewhat un feminine wariness of 
their competitors, I felt a kindliness that 



All Fools' Day 121 

almost amounted to tendre for those five 
thoughtless virgins. 

" I venerate an honest obliquity of under- 
standing. The more laughable blunders a 
man shall commit in your company, the more 
tests that he will not betray or overreach 
you. And take my word for this, reader, 
and say a fool told you, if you please, that 
he who hath not a dram of folly in his 
mixture hath pounds of worse matter in his 
composition. 

" It is said, ' The foolisher the fowl or 
fish the finer the flesh thereof,' and what are 
commonly called the world's received fools 
but such whereof the world is not worthy? 
And what have been some of the kindliest 
patterns of our species but so many darlings 
of absurdity? 

" Reader, if you invest my words beyond 
their fair construction, it is you and not I 
that are the April Fool." 



122 The Year's Festivals 

An English rhymester has shown us the 
principal features of an old-time Fools' Day : 

" On this great day are people sent 
On purpose for pure merriment ; 
And though the day is known before, 
Yet frequently there is great store 
Of those forgetfuls to be found, 
Who're sent to dance Moll Dixon's round; 
And having tried each shop and stall, 
And disappointed at them all, 
At last some tells them of the cheat, 
Then they return from the pursuit, 
And straightway home with shame they run, 
While others laugh at what is done. 
But 'tis a thing to be disputed, 
Which is the greatest fool reputed, 
The man that innocently went, 
Or he that him design'dly sent." 

So long-lived are customs attached to 
particular days that it is very probable that 
April Fools' Day will survive through many 
generations; and as the delights of fooling 
are perennial, so long as man lives, there 
will be attendant fools. 



EASTER 



EASTER 

" In the bonds of Death He lay, 
Who for our offence was slain; 
But the Lord is risen to-day, 

Christ hath brought us life again. 
Wherefore let us all rejoice, 
Singing loud with cheerful voice 

Hallelujah ! 



"Let us keep high festival 

On this most blessed day of days, 
When God His mercy showed to all; 
Our Sun is risen with brightest rays, 
And our dark hearts rejoice to see 
Sin and Night before Him flee. 

Hallelujah! 

"To the supper of the Lord, 
Gladly will we come to-day ; 
The word of peace is now restored, 
The old leaven is put away. 
Christ will be our food alone, 
Faith no life but His doth own. 

Hallelujah! " 
— Luther's Easter Hymn. 



EASTER 

" We know that this Easter Day shines on a nobler 
world than that of a century ago. We know that 
that Easter was brighter than that of a century 
before. We know that our children's children a 
century hence will look back on the Christian civi- 
lization of to-day, amazed, indeed, that we should 
think it worthy of congratulation." 

— K E. Hale. 

" Because He lived, this world begins to live 
to-day. And of its Spiritual birth this day is the 
anniversary." 

— E. E. Hale. 

Easter Sunday was formerly called the 
" Sunday of Joy," and, like many other fes- 
tival days, which have come down to us from 
earlier times, has been changed from its 
original character to a religious observance, 
and is now the festival of the resurrection of 
our Lord. 

I2 S 



1 26 The Year 's Festivals 

We know that long ago, there was a 
feast of the Teutonic goddess Ostera, who 
was the personification of the East, of the 
Morning, and of Spring. The Anglo-Saxon 
name was Eastre — from which, naturally 
enough, comes our Easter — and the month 
of April, which was dedicated to her, was 
called Eastermonath ; it is still known in 
Germany as " Ostermonat." 

The worship of Ostera was deeply rooted 
in northern Germany, and was brought into 
England by the Saxons; and the early mis- 
sionaries, finding it impossible to abolish it, 
endeavored, as they had done in so many 
other cases, to change it to a Christian fes- 
tival and to give to it a religious signifi- 
cance. This was more easily done than in 
some other instances; for the joy at the 
climbing sun, the lengthening day, the burst- 
ing of spring from the clutch of winter, and 
the universal resurrection of natural things, 
could quite easily be changed in thought 



Easter 1 27 

to joy at the rising of the Sun of Right- 
eousness, the power of Christ over death, 
and his release from the grave. 

Although the Church has always been 
united as to why Easter should be celebrated, 
there has been a wide difference of opinion 
as to when it should be observed. 

The first Christians retained many of the 
Mosaic customs, though later they were al- 
together abolished or held as only typical of 
some occurrence in the Christian religion; 
and the festival of Easter took its origin 
from the feast of the Passover, kept by the 
Jews on the fourteenth day of Nisan — the 
Hebrew month corresponding to our March 
or April, and the Eastern Church observed 
that date, while the Western Church, remem- 
bering that Christ rose on Sunday, had its 
festival on the Sunday following the day 
celebrated by the Jews and Eastern Chris- 
tians. The discussion as to the true date 
was kept up until the time o<f Constantine, 



128 The Year's Festivals 

who, in 325, brought the subject before the 
Council at Nice, and from that time Easter 
Sunday has been everywhere on one and 
the same day, — the first Sunday after the 
full moon which comes upon, or next after, 
the twenty-first of March. If the full moon 
occurs upon Sunday, Easter Day is the fol- 
lowing Sunday. 

One would think this an easy and infal- 
lible rule, for there must always be a moon, 
and it is pretty sure to be full, sometime 
during the month ; but even in following the 
moon there is difficulty, for these Church 
authorities decided to regulate the time of 
Easter, not by the actual moon, nor what is 
called by astronomers the " mean moon," 
but by an imaginary, ecclesiastical moon, 
whose movements follow the real moon by 
two or 'three days. However, this dog- 
matic moon serves its purpose, and may be 
depended upon z so long as it lags behind 



Easter 129 

the other regularly, and keeps in the same 
relation to it. 

The Easter festival in very early days 
was introduced by fasting on one day only 
— the Friday before, known as Good Fri- 
day — and the night preceding was devoted 
to prayer and thanksgiving until the time 
of cock-crow, which the people believed to 
be the moment of Christ's resurrection. 
Later the fast was extended to forty hours, 
the length of time that Christ lay in the 
tomb; and afterwards the period of prepa- 
ration was prolonged to> forty days, — the 
season of temptation in the Wilderness. 

The early Christians, on Easter morning, 
greeted each other with " Christ is risen," 
to which the person addressed answered, 
" Christ hath risen indeed, and hath appeared 
to Simon." 

All the ceremonies attending the observ- 
ance of Easter were at first exceedingly sim- 
ple; but in the early part of the fourth cen- 



130 The Year's Festivals 

tury, a decided change was brought about. 
Constantine, who, it is said, was fond of 
display, showed his love of parade by cele- 
brating this festival with extraordinary 
pomp. Night-watches were instituted in the 
churches until midnight; the tapers which 
had been used at this time were not thought 
sufficient, so huge pillars of wax were used 
instead. Not only were they placed in the 
churches, but all over the city, so that people 
might be tricked into thinking that the flames 
of Constantine's night-candles far exceeded 
the sunlight. Easter Sunday was filled with 
most elaborate ceremonials, the Pope officiat- 
ing at mass, with the most imposing service 
that could be devised. 

Various ceremonies, sports^ and supersti- 
tions have in times past characterized the 
day, and still many of the old Easter cus- 
toms are practised in different parts of the 
world. 

The days preceding Easter were observed 



Easter 131 

in various ways, secular and otherwise. In 
England, Good Friday and hot-cross buns 
are synonymous. The bun seems to be an 
institution which none will try to upset, and 
the devouring of them is universal among 
all classes; for not to eat a bun was be- 
lieved to cause the house of the non-eater 
to' be burned. But then, everybody ate buns, 
so there was no danger of fire. 

A loaf of bread baked on Good Friday 
was supposed to cure various ailments. A 
small portion of dry bread was grated into 
water and given to the patient, who swal- 
lowed it with large faith. There were other 
superstitions connected with the day which 
were very strange and unaccountable. One 
of these was the preparing of " cramp-rings," 
which were rings consecrated by the king 
and held sacred as a cure for the cramps of 
suffering subjects. A number of rings were 
placed in a silver basin, on the floor of the 
chapel, near a cushion, on which rested a 



132 The Year's Festivals 

crucifix. A piece of carpet was spread in 
front of the cushion^ and the king knelt 
down, crept along on his hands and knees, 
in token of his humility, to the crucifix. 
Here, with his almoner kneeling beside him, 
he made his prayer, blessed the rings, and 
retired. 

If you would have good luck, all fires 
must be put out on Easter Eve, and lighted 
afresh from flint and steel. This was a 
special protection against lightning strokes, 
as well as being an inducer o>f general good 
luck. 

" On Easter Eve the fire all is quenched in every- 
place, 

And fresh againe from out the flint is fetched with 
solemn grace; 

The priest doth halo this against great daungers 
many one, 

A brande whereof doth every man with greedie 
minde take home, 

That, when the fearfull storme appeares or tempest 
black arise, 

By lighting this he safe may be from stroke of 
hurtful skies." 



Easter 133 

It was believed that, on Easter morning, 
the sun danced in honor of the resurrection, 
and hundreds of people rose before the sun 
to see this feat. In the British Apollo, 
printed in 1 708, is this verse : 

" Phoebus, the old wives say 

That on Easter Day, 
To the musick o' the spheres you do caper. 

If the fact, sir, be true, 

Pray let's the cause know, 
When you have any room on your paper." 

The god Phoebus replies : 

" The old wives get merry 
With spiced ale and sherry 

On Easter, which makes them romance; 
And whilst in a rout 
Their brains whirl about, 

They fancy I caper and dance." 

Sir John Suckling wrote in " The Bride " : 

"But oh, she dances such a way, 
No sun upon an Easter Day 
Is half so fine a sight." 

In Scotland the sun was even more antic 
than in other places, for there it was ex- 



134 The Year's Festivals 

pected to whirl round like a cart-wheel, and 
give three leaps. That the sun really did 
dance was solemnly discussed and argued, 
and combated by grave old scholars, who 
took the trouble to demonstrate that, while 
the king of day might shine more brightly 
on Easter morning, he did not, and could 
not, dance. 

Another popular belief was, that one must 
wear for the first time, on Easter Sunday, 
a new article of dress, to ensure good fortune 
in love-affairs during the year. Can this be 
the origin of the Easter hat ? 

Here is one who must needs follow the 

fashion, slavishly, though he wore no Easter 

bonnet : 

" Last Eyster I put on my blew 
Frock cuoat, the vust time, vier new; 
Wi' yaller buttons aal o' brass, 
That glitter'd i' the zun lik glass; 
Bekaize 'twor Eyster Zunday." 

If the wind on Easter Sunday is in the 
east, it is best to draw Easter zvater and 



Easter 135 

bathe in it to prevent ill effects from east 
wind, throughout the remaining months of 
the year. 

Much importance is attached to rain fall- 
ing on Easter Day, for there is an old 
proverb : 

" A good deal of rain on Easter Day- 
Gives a good crop of grass, but little good hay." 

If the sun shines on Easter morning it will 
shine till Whitsunday; and a Sussex piece 
of weather-lore goes so far as to say, that 
if the sun shines on Easter Day, it will shine, 
if never so little, every day during the year, 
while if it be a rainy Easter, there will be 
rain every day in the year, if only a few 
drops fall. 

The custom of using eggs in various ways 
has ever been associated with Easter, and 
making presents of colored eggs was at one 
time almost universal. A writer says of 
this practice among the French : " With a 



136 The Year's Festivals 

people so ingenious in trifles as the Parisians, 
this opportunity is not lost, so that egg- 
shaped articles are to be had in every con- 
ceivable variety of material. One would 
think that the once imperial eagle of France 
had summoned all the birds of the air to 
come to Paris, build their nests in shop win- 
dows, and deposit their eggs there; for go 
where you will, look into whatever shop you 
fancy, there you see eggs from the size of 
a caraway comfit, such as is found in the 
nest of a humming-bird, to one as large as 
an ostrich egg. Passing along the streets 
are women with barrows, crying aloud : 
' Des ceufs ! des ceufs ! ' (' Eggs ! eggs !').■' 
In days when old and young alike re- 
ceived these eggs, the demand for them was 
such that they commanded great prices. 
After they were colored, various inscrip- 
tions and designs were traced on them ; and 
decorated eggs were exchanged by the sen- 



Easter 137 

timentally inclined, very much after the fash- 
ion of valentines. 

If we stop to think anything about it, we 
may wonder why it is, that of all things 
eggs should be so closely identified with 
Easter time. Other people have thought 
about it, too, and have accounted for it in 
different ways. 

The mysterious development of life in an 
egg has always been a wonder, and any one 
can see why it might be the symbol of the 
revival of nature and the springing forth of 
life, as it is used to illustrate many other 
things. Every one remembers the story of 
how Columbus astonished those who doubted 
his discoveries, by standing an egg on end; 
and we marvel yet at the wonderful roc's 
egg in the " Arabian Nights." The story 
of the goose which laid the golden egg is 
an old one, familiar to all, and the riddle 
of Humpty Dumpty has been given, if not 
guessed by every child. Who does not know 



138 The Year's Festivals 

what is meant by " counting chickens before 
they are hatched?" — which saying was 
originated only after people understood the 
tremendous possibilities and impossibilities 
contained in an egg. What boy has not 
had the experience of wonder and delight on 
finding a nest of birds' eggs ? A particularly 
intelligent cook once said that, with the 
dozens of eggs she destroys, she always has 
a certain misgiving whenever she breaks so 
perfect and wonderful a thing. 

The origin of Easter eggs seems to be a 
mixture of Christian and pagan legend. 

With the early Christians an egg was an 
emblem of the resurrection; while the Ro- 
mans thought of it in another way, as is 
shown by their egg games, which they cele- 
brated at the time of our Easter, when they 
ran races on oval tracks and received eggs 
as prizes. These games were instituted in 
honor of Castor and Pollux, the twins who 



Easter 1 39 

came forth from an egg deposited by the 
swan Leda. 

Some think the Easter egg custom was 
borrowed from the JewSj who, at their pass- 
over, placed on the table two unleavened 
cakes, two pieces of lamb, some small fish, 
and a hard egg, which was the symbol of a 
bird called Ziz, concerning which the rabbis 
had a thousand fabulous tales. 

We find these egg stories coming from 
different countries, and in a variety of forms. 
In ancient Persia there was a legend of two 
jealous brothers, who had a good deal of 
influence in the creation of things. One 
brother made an egg* containing good spirits, 
and the other produced one full of evil 
demons; and they broke the two together, 
so that good and evil became mixed in the 
world. In memory of these brothers the 
present-day Persians, on a certain festival 
in March, present each other with colored 



140 The Year's Festivals 

eggs; and it may be from this that we get 
our similar Easter custom. 

Another story tells us of a prince who, 
on Easter, presented a certain princess with 
a huge iron egg. She thought it a practical 
joke, and felt so insulted that she raised the 
e SS high and dashed it to the floor, regard- 
less of consequences. But, to her surprise, 
the force of the fall caused the egg to fly 
open, and on a beautiful lining of crystal lay 
a golden yolk. She took up the gold ball, 
and, opening it, found that it contained a 
crown of rubies ; this opened also, and there 
lay a betrothal ring of beautiful diamonds. 
The name of this ingenious prince or the 
time in which he lived is not known, neither 
do we know more than this about the German 
princess ; but the iron egg is surely a reality, 
for it may be seen in the Museum of Berlin. 

In a parchment of the time of Edward I. 
is found this item : " Eighteen pence " 
(thirty-six cents) " for four hundred eggs 



Easter 14 1 

to be used for Easter gifts." When has the 
price of eggs been so low? Less than two 
cents a dozen, and in Lent, too! 

If Easter was celebrated in the days of 
dodos, what sport there must have been, 
and on what a gigantic scale! A sample of 
these huge eggs was found in the island of 
Madagascar, by a Frenchman, who, in 1850, 
dug up some of them which measured thir- 
teen and a half inches in length, and eight 
and a half inches in diameter. The shells 
were as thick as an orange rind, and held 
eight quarts and a half, or as much as twelve 
dozen eggs would contain. In the days when 
these eggs were fresh, one could have lived 
very comfortably all through Lent on one 

""Another symbol of Easter quite as familiar 
as the egg is the Easter hare, which, 
strangely enough, is very closely connected 
with the moon. There were all sorts of 
fancies with regard to the moon, from the 



142 The Year's Festivals 

phases of which the time of Easter is reck- 
oned ; and among some nations the hare is a 
type of the moon itself. The Hindu and 
Japanese artists painted the hare across the 
moon's disc, while the Chinese represent the 
moon as a rabbit pounding rice in a mortar. 

Here are two versions of the story which 
explains the " hare in the moon." The first 
is : Buddha once took upon himself the form 
of a hare that he might feed a hungry fellow 
creature, and was translated in that form 
to the moon, where he evermore lives. But 
this is a very inferior version of the story 
of the starving tiger and her cubs whom 
Buddha fed with his mortal body. 

The second hare and moon legend says 
that when Indra, disguised as a famishing 
pilgrim, was praying for food, the hare, hav- 
ing nothing else to give him, threw itself 
into the fire that it might be roasted for his 
benefit; and the grateful Indra translated 
the animal to the moon; and some star- 



Easter 143 

gazers have strained their eyes and imagina- 
tions till they think they see him there. The 
mythical natural history of the Hindu tells 
us that hares dwell on the shores of the lake 
of the moon. 

The strands of these hare, moon, and 
Easter yarns have become so twisted in the 
heads of some unthinking people that chil- 
dren are sent out to look for rabbits' eggs ; 
and they really think that the Easter hare 
brings the beautiful colored eggs with which 
they are so delighted. 

In Swabia the association is so confused 
that the children are forbidden to make 
shadow pictures of rabbits on the wall, be- 
cause it is considered a sin against the moon; 
and among the colored people of the South 
is the strange superstition of the power as a 
talisman of the " left hind foot of a grave- 
yard rabbit killed in the dark of the moon." 

There is an ancient belief in the county of 
Warwick, England, that if the young men of 



i44 The Year's Festivals 

the town can catch a hare and bring it to the 
parson of the parish before ten o'clock on 
Easter morning, he is bound to give them a 
calf's head and a hundred eggs for their 
breakfast, and a groat in money. 

In former times Easter week was cele- 
brated with many sports, which were en- 
joyed by young and old. The children made 
gifts of colored eggs, which they rolled 
down-hill till they broke; the one whose 
egg held out longest was the luckiest one, 
and claimed all the eggs. We do not know 
whether or not it was a part of the game 
for the victor to share his spoils with his 
playmates, but it is to be hoped so. 

The game of ball was a favorite sport in 
which the town authorities engaged with all 
dignity. We are told that " both ecclesiastics 
and laymen " used to play ball in the churches 
for tansy cakes! Tansy puddings are still 
favorite Easter dishes in many parts of Eng- 
land, and in some parishes the clerk carried 



Easier I45 

round to each house a few cakes as an Easter 
offering. But during all Easter week there 
was as much playing and sporting as re- 
ligious ceremony. Gregory of Nyssa draws 
a vivid picture of the joyous crowds, who, 
by their dress (a feature still preserved), 
their pleasures, and devout attendance at 
church, honored the festival. All labor 
ceased, all trades were suspended, the law- 
courts were closed, alms were given to the 
poor, and slaves were freed. In the reaction 
from Lent, people gave themselves up to 
the enjoyment of popular sports, dances, and 
entertainments. Our modern customs are 
mild repetitions o<f the old Easter festivities. 
At the beginning of Lent, society gives up 
its pleasures, and those who choose may rest 
from social labors. This period of quiet 
ends on Easter Day, when society may put 
on its new Easter bonnet and go to church. 
After that, it begins to bustle again ; it may 
stop looking pious, and it may plunge again 



146 The Year's Festivals 

into the social eddy which it has churned 
for itself. 

There are various Easter Monday customs 
peculiar to> certain parts of England; of 
these, the hare-scramble and bottle-kicking 
of Hallaton are most interesting. At a re- 
mote period, not known to antiquaries, a 
piece of land was bequeathed to the rector 
conditionally, that he provide annually two 
hare pies, a quantity of ale, and two dozen 
penny loaves, to be scrambled for on each 
succeeding Easter morning, at the rising 
ground called Hare-pie Bank, about a quarter 
of a mile from the village of Hallaton. Of 
course, hares being out of season at this 
time of year, pies of mutton and veal were 
substituted. A benevolent rector of the last 
century made an effort to have the money 
applied to a better use ; but the village wags 
raised the cry ? and chalked on his walls and 
door as well as on the church : " No pie, 
no parson, and a job for the glazier." Other 



Easter 147 

subsequent attempts alike failed, and on Eas- 
ter Monday, at Hallaton, is the great carnival 
of the year. 

The custom of " lifting " or " heaving " 
was a pretty general one in Northern Eng- 
land or Scotland. A " chair " was made 
with the hands, and the person who honored 
the seat was tossed into the air three times, 
and afterwards kissed. It was the privilege 
of the men to " lift " the women on Easter 
Monday, while the women returned the com- 
pliment upon Tuesday. It is said that on 
Easter Monday husbands beat their wives, 
and on Tuesday wives returned the favor 
and beat their husbands. Probably both 
parties knew their just deserts, and a sat- 
isfactory annual reckoning was not a bad 
idea, if they did not object to the method 
of mutual punishment. 

There was also the custom among the 
men of taking off women's shoe-buckles, 
which were redeemed by a present. Next 



148 The Year's Festivals 

day the women possessed themselves of 
buckles from the men's shoes, which were 
bought back by money or presents. 

But of all these rude methods of " give 
and take," some one writing from War- 
wickshire, in 1849, says that " the woman's 
heaving-day was the most amusing. Many 
a time have I passed along the streets inhab- 
ited by the lower orders of people, and seen 
parties of jolly matrons assembled round 
tables on which stood a foaming tankard of 
ale. There they sat in all the pride of abso- 
lute sovereignty, and woe to the luckless man 
that dared tx> invade their prerogatives ! As 
sure as he was seen he was pursued, as 
soon as he was pursued he was taken, and 
as soon as he was taken he was ' heaved ' 
and kissed, and compelled to pay sixpence 
for leave and leisure to depart." 

A grave clergyman, who happened to be 
passing through Lancashire on Easter Tues- 
day, was staying an hour or two at an inn. 



Easter 149 

He was astonished by three or four lusty 
women, who rushed into his room, say- 
ing they had come to " lift him." The cler- 
gyman stood aghast at such an intrusion, 
and asked them to interpret their unknown 
tongue. " Why, your reverence," they ex- 
plained, " we've come to lift ye 'cause its 
Easter Tuesday. All us women was hove 
yesterday, and us heaves the men to-day — 
and in course it's our rights and duties to 
heave 'em." But, after a little parley, the 
divine persuaded his visitors to relinquish 
their " rights and duties " for half a crown. 

In the thirteenth century there was a cus- 
tom of seizing all ecclesiastics who walked 
abroad, between Easter and Pentecost (be- 
cause the apostles were seized by the Jews), 
and making them purchase their liberty with 
money. 

Upon Thursday of Easter week it was a 
custom, for many years, for the English 
king and queen to wash the feet of as many 



150 The Year's Festivals 

poor subjects as they were years old. Queen 
Elizabeth, when thirty-nine years old, per- 
formed for the last time in her life this cere- 
mony in memory of the similar act of Christ. 
King James II. was the last monarch to 
observe this rite. The water used was mixed 
with" sweet herbs, and, after washing, the 
sign of the cross was made on the feet, and 
gifts were presented to the people. 

Cardinal Wolsey also performed a similar 
office in 1530, to fifty-nine poor men, and it 
is stated that he gave every one of them 
" twelve pence in money, three ells of good 
canvas to> make them shirts, a pair of new 
shoes, a cast of red herring, and three white 
herrings ; and one of them two shillings." 

As a part of the joy and freedom of 
Easter time, music is indispensable. Our 
thought of Easter is made vivid with flowers 
and music; and who* has not been deeply 
moved by the wonderful chorus which closes 
Gounod's "Redemption." "Unfold! Unfold! 



Easter 151 

Ye portals everlasting-!" will be sung as 
long as Easter is remembered, and its power 
will impress more than sermon or ritual. 

The first Easter hymns were sung in the 
old cloisters behind gray walls amid prayers 
and penances; the words were austere, and 
the music strangely monotonous and severe. 
There seems little in the life of a monk to 
call forth much poetry or song, but he had 
the Old Testament, rich in symbolism and 
imagery from which to draw inspiration, and 
though the early poetry was restricted to 
very narrow limits, it. often expressed bold 
realism and strong feeling. The whole 
nature of the mediaeval monk burst forth in 
religious expression, every other avenue 
being closed to him, and his poetry, song, 
and prayer show the intensity of his inner 
life. 

The earliest Easter hymn of which we 
have any knowledge takes us back to the 
fourth century. Its author is St. Ambrose, 



152 The Year's Festivals 

and it was probably written about the year 
34o: 

"This is the very day of God, — 
Serene with holy light it came, — 
In which the stream of sacred blood 
Swept over the world's crime and shame. 

O, admirable Mystery! 
The sins of all are laid on Thee; 
And Thou, to cleanse the world's deep stain, 
As man, doth bear the sins of men. 
What can be ever more sublime! 
That grace might meet the guilt of time. 
Love doth the bonds of fear undo, 
And death restores our life anew ! " 

This hymn probably loses much of its force 
through translation, but it sufficiently ex- 
presses the religious thought of the time. 

There are other hymns, many of them 
full of religious dogma, which impress us 
with the inexorable severity of the author's 
idea; others are singularly beautiful, and 
express the passionate love of the monk for 
Christ and the Church. 



JSaster 

Easter Morning 
Service 



\ 



Easter 153 

The hymns of later times are broader in 
thought and more elaborate in musical form, 
and the examples of Easter music which are 
now sung in the churches are among the 
most beautiful ever written. 

Our thought of a modern Easter Sunday 
pictures a bright morning, birds singing, 
everybody in good spirits, and everybody 
going to church ; for even those who usually 
must be argued or scolded into going, will 
adopt church ways as a matter of course on 
Easter Sunday. Children, especially, readily 
fall in with usages that combine cheerful- 
ness with reverence, and, having once at- 
tended an Easter service, will never forget 
the flowers and music, however much of the 
sermon may have escaped them. The cus- 
tom in many of our modern churches of dis- 
tributing flowers to the children is a charm- 
ing and touching one. Indeed, the children 
have come to feel that the Easter service 
is especially devoted to them. 



154 The Vear's Festivals 

The Easter lily and resurrection anthem 
speak a language at once personal and uni- 
versal. They convey unmistakably a senti- 
ment which appeals to the common taste and 
imagination; and as each Easter festival 
comes round, our associations of it are en- 
riched, our religious instincts are quickened, 
and we have a clearer knowledge of the 
words with which the early Christians 
greeted each other on Easter morning, 
" Christ is risen ! " 



MAY DAY 



MAY DAY 

; Come, my Corinna, come ; and coming, mark 
How each field turns a street, each street a park 
Made green and trimmed with trees; see how 
Devotion gives each house a bough 
Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this 
An ark, a tabernacle is 
Made up of white thorn neatly interwove; 
As if here were those cooler shades of love. 

Can such delights be in the street 

And open fields, and we not see't? 

Come, we'll abroad; and let's obey 

The proclamation made for May: 
And sin no more as we have done by staying; 
But, my Corinna, come, let's goe a- Maying." 

— Robt. Herrick. 



MAY DAY 

" Is not thilke the mery moneth of May 
When love lads masken in fresh aray? 
How falles it, then, we no merrier beene, 
Ylike as others, girt in gaudy green ? " 

— Spencer. 

" The flowery May who from her green lap throws 
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose, 



Thus we salute thee with our early song, 
And welcome thee and wish thee long." 

In these days people cannot stop amid 
the sweep of twentieth-century events to 
devote themselves to special rites on this 
spring day; there seems to be no time for 
it ; and so many other things are of greater 
importance, the quaint old May-day customs 
are fast dying out. It is not because people 
have forgotten how to play. Every one 
i57 



158 The Year's Festivals 

knows that impulse, which comes with the 
first summer wind and the first rush of birds, 
to shake off all work and walk straight out 
into the country as far as he can; and 
no one cares to resist that delicious spring 
feeling which communicates exhilaration 
to everything. We may like to express our 
spring pleasures just as positively, but it 
is by more individual methods than did the 
young people of two hundred years ago: 

On May-day in the country villages there 
may be found, now and then, a remnant of 
enthusiasm among the young people in the 
hanging of May-baskets, and a few other 
simple demonstrations, but of the pageants 
of former May-days we have only the mem- 
ories which old chroniclers have handed 
down to us. In the ceremonies devoted to 
May-day were elements of the ancient sun- 
worship and of the Roman observances in 
honor of the goddess Flora, while the May- 
pole and its attendant displays were relics 



May Day 159 

of the nature-worship of the East. To these 
were added various amusements popular at 
different times. It may be reasoned that 
impulses which were a result of decided 
changes of season would be strongest in a 
northern climate, where sensations, like tree- 
sap and young buds, were set free after a 
bound up winter; so in early days there was 
developed in England greater enthusiasm 
for May-day sports and festivals than was 
found in more southern countries. 

On the first of May all manner of sports, 
music, and dancing were indulged in, and 
were supposed to be a good augury for the 
success of the crops for the coming season. 
In the " Survey o>f London," Stowe says 
that on May-day in the morning, every man 
would walk into' the meadows and green 
woods to rejoice their spirits with the beauty 
and odor of flowers, and with the harmony 
of singing birds. " I find that the citizens 
of London, of all estates, lightly, in every 



160 The Yearns Festivals 

parish, or sometimes two or three parishes 
together, had their several mayings, and did 
fetch May-poles with divers warlike shews, 
with good archers, morrice-dancers, and 
other devices for passtime, all the day long; 
and towards the evening they had stage- 
plaies" and bone-fires in the streets." 

In the reign of Henry VI. the aldermen 
and sheriffs of London, being on May-day 
at the Bishop of London's wood, and having 
had there " a worshipful dinner for them- 
selves and other comers," the Monk of Bury 
sent them his commendation of the event 
in these lines : 

" Mighty Flora, goddess of fresh flow'rs 
Which clothed hath the soil in lusty greene, 
Made buds to spring with her sweet show'rs 
By influence of the sun sheene, 
To do pleasaunce of intent full -dene 
Unto the states which now sit here 
Hath verily sent down her daughter dear." 

These early May morning excursions into 
wood and field were enjoyed by all, old and 



May Day 161 

young. There is a description of one of 
these May-walks given by one who was in 
the mood to appreciate the pleasure of others, 
though he was rather a melancholy spectator. 
Ralph Cunnynghame, in a letter to his 
cousin, writes on May-day, 1610: 

" Last night I slept but ille soe was awake 
in the dawne of day, and forth to coole my 
brayne in the freshe dewinesse of the earlie 
morne. There was a tumult of sweete 
sound from the throat of a thousand birdes 
till alle the ayre both far and neare, was 
fulle of theire jubilate, and all the breath 
of the morne was laden with the bitter fra- 
grance of Maye " (hawthorn). "Soe I 
wandered, my heart now calme within me, 
with a blessed peace, till I came to' that deare 
spott where I first beheld my Love in all her 
beautie, and there I sat me downe in deepe 
meditation. How long I sat there I know 
not, but I was aroused from my thoughtful- 
nesse by the merrie sound of pypinge and 



1 62 The Year's Festivals 

sweet laughter of youths and maydens, and 
presentlie over the hill came a partie, the 
most joyous that ever I have seen, that had 
gone forth at dawne to gather the Maye, 
and nowe were returninge to the village with 
pyping and songe, alle laden with the blos- 
soms" lyke greate heapes of fragrant snowe. 
Soe they past me and were gone, the noise 
of manie voices and of musick growing 
fainter till it was nigh stilled by the dis- 
tance. 

" They have deckt the village alle out, 
lintel and beame, with those blossoms, and 
alle is joyousnesse and mirth. To-day I 
went forthe with John to behold them raise 
the May-pole, alle bedeckt with flowers, and 
streaming ribands wreathed upon greate 
hoopes hangyinge from the top of the pole. 
This they raised with vast shoutings of mer- 
rie voices. This done, sundrie youths and 
maydens took eache one riband that hung 
from the pole, and, with musick, danced in 



/lfta^H>ag 

Ax English Maypole 
Dance 



May Day 163 

and out and back and forth but ever around 
the pole, and nigher it, till with their danc- 
ing they had woven the ribands into prettie 
patternes from the top to the bottom, manie 
standing around watching the joyous sight. 
All the morning they have been dancing 
and making merrie, the Landlord of the 
Bull's Heade having broached a great barrel 
of October ale for their pleasuring. I tell 
thee this to lett thee see howe here they cele- 
brate the coming of Maye, though I could 
enjoy it not fullie myself, being distracted 
with other thoughts." 

In olden times the May-feast was one 
of the great events of the year, and town and 
village made it a day of revelry and rejoic- 
ing. Long before sunrise on May morning 
parties of young people went to the near-by 
woods and fields to gather the sweet-scented 
hawthorn; this became such a part of the 
festivities that gathering of hawthorn came 
to be spoken of as " gathering the May." 



164 The Year's Festivals 

The leading feature, however, of May- 
day sports was raising the May-pole which 
had been brought into the town with much 
ceremony, and the citizens, old and young, 
devoted themselves to these pleasures with 
unstinted zeal. An old English writer de- 
scribes this rather showy event : 

" They have twentie or fortie yoke of 
Oxen, every One havyng a sweete Nosegaie 
of flowers placed on the tippe of his homes, 
and these Oxen drawe home this Maie-pole, 
which is covered all over with Flowers and 
Herbes, bounde rounde aboute with strynges, 
from the top to the bottome, and sometyme 
painted with variable colours, with two or 
three hundred men, women, and children 
following it, with great devotion. And this 
being reared up, with handkerchiefs and 
flagges streamyng on the toppe, thei strawe 
the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes 
about it, sett up Summer Hauses, Bowers, 
and Arbors hard by it. And then fall thei 



May Day 165 

to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce 
aboute it." 

It was customary to have a Lord of May 
as well as Queen of May, but that was long 
ago, as the language of their description 
shows. " The May King, Robin Hood, was 
to have a baldrick of blue tarantine silver 
embroidered. The May Queen, Maid 
Marian, was to be habited in watchet-col- 
ored tissue, and her two maidens were to 
have white courtpies, with a girdle of silver 
bandekin; they were to have tabards, or 
short jackets, with girdles of cloth of silver." 

At evening, when the great bonfires were 
lighted, the Queen of May, who had presided 
over the festivities during the day., withdrew 
with her companions, and the King of May 
was left to conduct the revels of the night, 
which often lasted till the next morning, and 
were sometimes carried to great excess. 

It is said that in his younger days King 
Henry VIII. delighted to rise with the sun 



1 66 The Year's Festivals 

on May mornings, and, with a company from 
his court, ride into the woods a-maying. 
An old writer of the time tells us, in very 
old English, and with a reckless disregard 
for orthography, of one of King Henry's 
May-days : 

" The king and the quene accopanyed with 
many lordes & ladies roade to the high 
grounde of shoters hil to take the open ayre, 
and as they passed by the way, they espied 
a copany of tall yomen, clothed all in grene 
whodes & bowes & arrowes, to the number 
of ii.C. 

" Then one of them, which called him 
selfe Robyn hood, came to the kyng, desyring 
him' to se his men shoote & the kyng was 
cotent. Then he whisteled & al the ii.C 
archers shot and losed at once & then he 
whisteled agayne & they likewyse shot 
agayne, their arrowes whisteled by craft of 
the head, so that the noyes was straunge and 
great, and much pleased the kynge and quene 



May Day 167 

and all the company. All these archers were 
of the kynges garde and had thus appareled 
them selves to make solace to the kyng. 
Then Robin hood desyred the kyng and 
quene to come into' the green wood & to se 
how the outlawes live. 

" The kynge demaunded of y e quene & her 
ladyes, if they durst adventure to go into 
the wood with so many outlaws. Then the 
quene sayde, that if it pleased him, she was 
content; then the homes blewe tyl they 
came to the wood under shoters hil, and 
there was an Arber made of boowes with 
a hal, and a great chaber and an inner cham- 
ber, very well made, and covered with 
floures & swete herbes, whiche the kynge 
muche praysed. 

" Then said Robyn hood, Sir Outlaws 
brekefastes is venyson, and therefore you 
must be content with such fare as we use. 
Then the kyng and quene sat downe, & were 
served with venyson and wyne by Robin 



1 68 The Year's Festivals 

hood and his men, to' their great contenta- 
cion." 

In England, in the last century, the milk- 
maids' dance formed a very pretty feature 
of May-day shows. There was much rivalry 
in preparing the " garland," which was built 
of polished milk-pails and other articles of 
the dairy, silver cups, tankards, salvers, and 
similar things which could be begged or 
borrowed from the neighbors. These uten- 
sils were arranged in the form of a pyramid, 
and decorated with flowers, leaves, and gay 
ribbons. The " garland " was carried from 
house to house while the milkmaids danced 
around, to the music of a fiddler. . 

In some places, instead of the tin garland, 
it was the custom to lead a cow about, her 
horns gilded and her body decorated with 
ribbons, green leaves, and flowers. 

Among the Irish and Scotch Highlanders 
May-day was known as " Beltine," or, " The 
day of Belens fire," and among the observ- 



May Day 169 

ances of the day are found superstitions 
which entered into so many of their celebra- 
tions. 

In Pennant's " Tour of Scotland, 1771," 
is described the May-day ceremony : 

" On the first day of May in the High- 
lands of Scotland, the herdsmen of every 
village hold their ' Bel-tein.' They cut a 
square trench on the ground, make a fire of 
wood, on which they dress a large caudle of 
eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk, and bring, 
besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty 
of beer and whiskey; for each of the com- 
pany must contribute something. 

" The rites begin with spilling some of 
the caudle on the ground, by way of liba- 
tion; on that, every one takes a cake of 
oatmeal, upon which are raised square knobs, 
each dedicated to some particular being, the 
supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, 
or to some animal, the real destroyer of 
them. Each person then turns his face to 



170 The Year's Festivals 

the fire, breaks off a knob, and, flinging it 
over his shoulder, says : ' This I give to 
thee, — preserve thou my horses ; this to 
thee, — preserve thou my sheep ; ' and so on. 
After that; they use the same ceremony to 
the noxious animals. When the ceremony 
is over they dine on the caudle; and, after 
the feast is finished, what is left is hid by 
two persons deputed for that purpose ; but on 
the next Sunday they reassemble and finish 
the reliques of the first entertainment." 

There was an ancient superstition among 
the natives in the village of Barvas in the 
Isle of Lewis, that if a woman was the first 
to cross the Barvas River on May-day, the 
salmon would not come into it for a whole 
year. To guard against this disastrous pos- 
sibility, a man was appointed every year to 
cross the river as soon as sunrise, and no 
woman dared stir out till this important citi- 
zen had fulfilled his annual duty. 



May Day 171 

The poet Gay describes another first of 
May superstition : 

"Last May-day fair I searched to find a snail 
That might my secret lover's name reveal; 
Upon a gooseberry bush a snail I found, 
For always snails near sweetest fruit abound. 
I seized the vermin; home I quickly sped, 
And on the hearth the milk-white embers spread. 
Slow crawled the snail, and if I right can spell, 
In the soft ashes marked a curious L. 
O, may this wondrous omen lucky prove, 
For L is found in Luberkin and Love ! " 

Another superstition for the day is that 
if you look through smoked glass into an 
unused well, you will see your future hus- 
band or wife. And another : Throw a ball 
of yarn into* an old cellar or barn, and wind, 
repeating the words : 

" I wind, I wind, my true love to find, 
The color of his hair, the clothes he'll wear, 
The day he is married to me." 

If you are patient and wind long enough 
(though the time isn't stated), your "true 
love " will appear and wind with you. 



172 The Year's Festivals 

Although a few of these tricks of divina- 
tion may have been tried, they were not an 
important feature. 

May-day ceremonies were for the people, 
and had no purpose beyond that of pure 
enjoyment; and it is interesting to' know 
how even the town officials entered into the 
amusements. We know the cost of some of 
the old-time May-poles, for the price may 
be found in the church wardens' accounts. 
Parishes of London vied with each other 
in the height and decoration of their May- 
poles. One at Basing Lane was forty feet 
high, and one was erected in the Strand a 
hundred and thirty feet high. So high and 
big was it, that some of the sailors of the 
Lord High Admiral worked four hours to 
raise it up with ropes and pulleys. Then 
there was the May-pole which was kept in 
Shaft Alley, resting on hooks above the 
doors of the houses; but after the sermon 
preached at Paul's Cross Church, in which 



May Day 173 

this May-pole was denounced as a symbol 
of idolatry, it was sawn up and burned, 
each man taking the piece that his house 
measured. 

We can easily see why, in America, these 
festivals have declined, or, more truly, were 
never established; for the Puritans were 
great enemies of May-games and the May- 
pole, and, during Cromwell's time, all May- 
sports were prohibited, and May-poles or- 
dered to be taken down and burned. 

By the time Charles II. was made king, 
the people were thoroughly tired of the 
eleven years of Puritan rule, and when their 
May-day celebrations were allowed again, 
summer was sung and danced in more joy- 
ously and riotously than ever, and the rois- 
terers trimmed the houses of prominent 
Puritans with not very pleasant decorations. 

This enmity of the Puritans was partly 
political and partly religious. They objected 
because May-games were commanded by the 



1^4 "The Year's Festivals 

" Book of Sports," both of James I. and 
Charles L, and also because they had been 
allowed in Catholic times, and so were de- 
nounced as idolatrous. 

One Puritan preacher said : " If Moses 
was angry when he saw the people dance 
around a golden calf, well may we be angry 
to see people dancing about a post ; " and 
another said : " The rude rabble set up their 
Ensign of Idolatry and Prof aneness even in 
Cheapside." 

A rhyme of 1646 reads : 

" And harmless May Poles are raiPd upon 
As if they were the towers of Babylon." 

In a pamphlet of 1691, reference was 
made to these Puritan " brethren " when it 
said : " Remember the blessed times when 
everything in the worltl that was displeasing 
and offensive to the brethren went under the 
name of horrid and abominable Popish super- 
stitions ; organs and May-poles, surplices and 



May Day i?$ 

long hair; cathedrals and playhouses; set 
forms of prayer and painted glass; fonts 
and apostles' spoons, — a long list." 

No wonder, then, that the first May-day 
celebration in New England, with its May- 
pole and reckless jollity, was denounced by 
the Pilgrim fathers, who felt the responsi- 
bility of keeping the new American continent 
free from sin. 

The May-pole of Merrymount was set up 
in 1627, when lawless Thomas Morton and 
his motley crew landed on the shores of 
Boston Bay, and with loud revels celebrated 
the first of May. 

The Pilgrims had been settled at Plym- 
outh, twenty miles farther south, for six 
years. Scattered along the seven hundred 
miles of seacoast there were but two hundred 
and fifty people, most of them at Plym- 
outh, and in this wilderness it seems an 
incongruous thing that such festivities should 
have taken place, when the revellers might 



176 The Year's Festivals 

soon suffer the perils of hunger, and whose 
only neighbors were savages, or the devout, 
severe Puritans, whose influence tended to 
anything but lightheartedness. 

But Morton and his followers possessed 
high spirits sufficient unto themselves, and 
as they had taken things into their own hands 
at the settlement of Quincy, it pleased them 
to celebrate May-day of 1627 with all the 
ceremonies which had been used in the most 
jovial English days, with many more added. 

They did not carouse soberly, for, from 
the account of Morton himself, we know that 
there was a barrel of strong beer, besides 2 
liberal supply of bottles of stronger drinks, 
which had been supplied for the cheer o>f all 
comers. 

The May-pole itself was a pine-tree eighty 
feet long, wreathed with flowers and made 
gay with ribbons, and at the top were nailed 
the spreading horns of a buck. 

When the holiday came, the pole was 



The Merrymounters' 
May - Polk 



May Day 177 

dragged to the top of Merrymount, amid the 
rattle of drums and the firing of flintlocks, 
and there set, the Indians helping with the 
rest. A poem suited to the occasion, written 
by Morton, was tacked to the pole. The 
author says of it : " Enigmatically composed, 
it pusselled the Separatists most pittifully to' 
expound it ; " and it is said that none since 
that day has been able to make out the sense 
of it, there being so little in it. Governor 
Bradford was impressed with its meaning 
enough to say : " These rimes affixed to this 
idoll May-pole tended to ye detraction & 
scandall of some persons ; " but he does not 
go so far as to specify either the nature of 
the scandal or the names of the persons. 
But to most people the whole effusion, with 
the exception of the last two lines, in which 
the first of May is declared a holiday, is a 
very wordy puzzle ; and Governor Bradford 
need not have been anxious about its evil 
effects. He might have been more concerned 



178 The Year's Festivals 

about the conduct of the company, which 
was far from Puritanical. While the people 
danced and circled around the May-pole, 
some one kept filling the cups, and, as he did 
so, sang one of Morton's songs: 

. " Make greene garlons, bring bottles out ; 
And fill sweet Nectar freely about, 
Uncover thy head, and feare no harme, 
For her's good liquor to keepe it warme. 

" Give to the Mellancolly man 
A cup or two oft now and than; 
This physick will soone revive his bloud, 
And make him be of a merrier mood." 

Governor Bradford thought that this song 
also tended to unseemly merriment and ex- 
cess, but his displeasure had no effect, for 
his authority could not be enforced beyond 
his settlement at Plymouth. There we have 
record of but one attempt to establish old 
English festivities in New England, when 
some newcomers refused to work upon 
Christmas Day because of their conscientious 



May Day 179 

scruples. " So y e Gov r tould them that if 
they made it a matter of conscience, he would 
spare them till they were better informed. 
So he led away y e rest and left them; but 
when they came home at noone from their 
work, he found them in y e streete at play, 
openly; some pitching y e barr & some at 
stoole-ball, and such like sports. So he went 
to them, and tooke away their implements, 
and toulde them that it was against his con- 
science that they should play and others 
work. If they made y e keeping of it a matter 
of devotion, let them kepe their houses, but 
ther should be no gameing or revelling in 
y e streets." 

We do not wonder, then, that the reports 
of Morton's May- festival filled the Plymouth 
people with horror, and that they could find 
nothing so- heathenish to compare with it 
since pagan times. So Governor Bradford 
writes again : 

" They allso sit up a May-pole, drinking 



180 The Year's Festivals 

and dancing aboute it many days togeather ; 
dancing and frisking togither with the In- 
dean women, as if they had anew revived & 
celebrated the feasts of y e Roman Goddes 
Flora, or y e beasly practices of y e madd 
Bacchanalian." 

When dare-devil Morton met with such 
opposition, fainter-hearted ones had no cour- 
age for pleasuring in the face of those awe- 
some Pilgrim fathers, so we may say that 
the delights of the old May-day festival never 
came to* this side of Merrie England. 

All over Europe the songs of spring and 
May-time are to be found, some of the melo- 
dies being very beautiful. The music of 
May-day endured long after the ceremonies 
ceased to be, the words of the songs out- 
living some of the tunes. Here is an old 
Lancashire carol : 

" Come, lads, with your bills, 
To the work we'll away. 
We'll gather the boughs 
And we'll celebrate May. 



May Day 181 

" We'll bring our loads home 
As we've oft done before, 
And leave a green bough 
At each pretty maid's door." 

This is a May-eve song, a work of some 
crude composer : 

" If we should wake you from your sleep, 
Good people listen now, 
Our yearly festival we keep, 
And bring a Maythorn bough; 
An emblem of the world it grows, 
The flowers its pleasures are, 
And many a thorn bespeaks its woes, 
Its sorrow and its care." 

Here is a stanza of an old carol : 

" The rose is red, the rose is white, 
The rose is in my garden; 
I would not part with my sweetheart 
For twopence-halfpenny farden." 

It would not be a very great calamity if 
even these old May-songs should be for- 
gotten with the old May-day ceremonies, 
for every year the spirit of May comes, and 



1 82 The Year's Festivals 

with it new songs from the throat of every 
bird and the heart of every man. Cromwell 
could, with his " Barebone's Parliament," 
prohibit May-poles and May-sports in Lon- 
don, and the devout Plymouth Pilgrims could 
frown down open demonstrations of May- 
day pleasures, but neither Cromwell nor the 
Pilgrim fathers can prevent the unconscious 
nature-worship which springs up in every 
heart, and which will find expression in spite 
of parliaments and creeds. 

We may not care for a May-pole the size 
of a ship's mast, nor for the old-time decked- 
out May-queen who sat on a throne of roses 
and held a sceptre of rushes, but there is not 
one who does not, on every sweet May morn- 
ing, sing in spirit the closing lines of the 
old poem : 

" While time serves and we are but decaying, 
Come, my Corinna, come, let's goe a-Maying." 



HALLOWE'EN 



HALLOWE'EN 

" There is a world in which we dwell, 

And yet a world invisible ! 
- And do not think that naught can be, 
Save only what with eyes ye see; 
I tell ye, that, this very hour, 
Had but your sight a spirit's power, 
Ye would be looking, eye to eye, 
At a terrific company ! " 

" I tell ye the story this chill Hallowe'en, 

For it suiteth the Spirit eve; 
The spirits are pulling the sere dry leaves 

Of the shadowy forest down. 
And howl the gaunt reapers that gather the sheaves, 

With the moon, o'er their revels, to frown. 
To-morrow ye'll find all the spoils in your path, 

And ye'll speak of the wind and the sky; 
But oh, could ye see them to-night, in their wrath, 

I ween ye'd be frenzied of eye ! " 



HALLOWE'EN 

" In the hinder end of harvest upon All Hallow Eve, 
Quhen our gude nichbours rydis (now gif I reid 

richt) 
Some bucklet on a benwood and some on a bene, 
Ay trottand into troupes fra the twilicht." 

— King James VI. 

How many times have those people, 
vaguely called Ancient Heathen, been re- 
sponsible for inaugurating habits which have 
been blindly followed by all nations for 
thousands of years. It may be that these 
ancients were particularly original and far- 
sighted, and, having satisfied all the demands 
of their own lives, prophetically discerned 
the needs of future people, and established 
customs which would adapt themselves to all 
races for all times. 

185 



1 86 The Year's Festivals 

But it is easier to suppose that certain 
traits inherent in human nature have been, 
and always will be, expressed, regardless of 
example. If the first man was a superstitious 
one, then the last man will have at least some 
little superstition hanging about him. 

People have been credulous in supernat- 
ural things from the beginning of time, and 
the origin of certain traditions, like the abso- 
lute origin of superstition, can never be 
reached. Many customs which prevail have 
been preserved simply as a matter of 
thoughtless habit, others by the power of 
imagination, which has made vague beliefs 
appear as realities, and which has kept alive 
certain observances, when all knowledge of 
their causes has long been forgotten. 

The origin of traditions connected with 
Hallowe'en, like those surrounding many 
other subjects, is lost in antiquity; and 
though the traditions themselves are com- 
posed oi such material as the fancies of 



Halloween 187 

people, they seem to have survived shocks 
which would destroy a more substantial 
thing. 

Even in these practical, matter-of-fact 
times, we meet people who have their 
superstitions about dreams, folk-medicine, 
weather-proverbs, the number thirteen, and 
the fulfilment of wishes upon various con- 
ditions; and every one is familiar with the 
witch, wizard, hobgoblin, and evil eye of 
past days. 

Our forefathers looked upon nature with 
reverence and horror, and delighted to as- 
tonish themselves with the apprehensions 
of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and en- 
chantments. There was not a village in 
England that had not at least one ghost in 
it; the churchyards were all haunted, every 
village green had its circle of fairies, and 
there was scarce a shepherd to be met with 
who had not seen a spirit. 

At times superstitions have been exagger- 



1 88 The Year's Festivals 

ated into insane foreboding. Nature's sim- 
plest phenomena meant some disaster; 
dreams and visions of the morbid were ac- 
cepted as divine inspirations ; the commonest 
object was raised to the importance of an 
oracle ; demon-music was heard in the wind, 
and destiny read in the stars. 

There were always some, however, who, 
during the times of greatest excitement, kept 
their senses, and, by coolly directing sus- 
picion to one who might be a witch or have 
an evil eye, could often rid themselves of 
many a disagreeable person ; so the practical 
man made especial use of the superstitions 
of his neighbors. 

Talk about supernatural things was al- 
most as universal and interesting as talk 
about the weather. Gay, the poet, tells us 

about — 

" Those tales of vulgar sprites 
Which frightened boys relate on winter nights, 
How cleanly milkmaids meet the fairy train, 
How headless horses drag the clinking chain, 



Halloween 189 

Night roaming ghosts by saucer eyeballs known, 
The common spectres of each country town." 

Many ancient popular divinations were 
associated with a particular season, and the 
observations connected with Hallowe'en 
probably represent a heathen festival whose 
celebration consisted in giving- to the de- 
parted, at harvest-time, his share of the 
fruits of the earth. At this time the spirits 
of the dead were supposed to walk abroad, 
and all practices, as are shown by ancient 
magic and savage custom, were of such a 
nature as would be favorable for spirits to 
manifest themselves. 

In these ceremonies, water, fire, all the 
elements of nature, with the sun, moon, and 
stars, were resorted to, that the spirits might 
easily find expression; but there seems to 
have been little success in gaining very much 
general knowledge, for in modern times only 
those superstitions have the greatest interest 
for us which are based on the broadest and 



190 The Year's Festivals 

most human foundation — those connected 
with death and marriage. 

So the custom of prying after knowledge 
about future partners for life, is but a sur- 
vival of an older practice, and though the 
special intention of many ceremonies has 
been forgotten, Hallowe'en customs show 
the lively desire of all young people to look 
into the future with reference to marriage. 

However it came about, it is quite cer- 
tain that the evening of the thirty-first of 
October has been stamped with a peculiar 
character, by the popular imagination. The 
notion prevails that the supernatural rules. 
Spirits walk the earth, shades haunt all 
convenient places, spooks hide in every cor- 
ner, and hobgoblins run wild. 

In spite of all this uncanniness, instead 
of being paralyzed with fear, people court 
these unseen things, who have the reputa- 
tion of being friendly devils, and who will 
give valuable information upon important 



Halloween 191 

subjects if approached rightly, and if one 
complies with some simple condition. 

The questions with which these invisibles 
are taxed usually refer to somebody's love- 
affair; that being settled, all minor matters 
will easily adjust themselves. 

If these spirits take such interest in mor- 
tals that they are willing to show gratui- 
tously how young people may solve their 
hearts' riddles, surely one cannot hesitate 
to perform a few simple rites. 

First there is the oracle of the nuts. A 
number of nuts are named for lovers and 
put upon a bed of coals. If a nut jumps, 
the lover will prove unfaithful, — probably 
he is a man of spirit, and finds conditions 
too hot for him. If a nut blazes and burns, 
he surely loves the girl who named the nut, 
— the fires of love rage in his bosom. If 
both nuts named for a maid and her lover 
burn together, they will be married. It is 
well that anxious ones performing this cere- 



192 The Year's Festivals 

mony be provided with very dry, combusti- 
ble nuts and a fine bed of red coals. An 
early eighteenth-century poet has taken this 
ceremony so seriously that he has put it 
into verse : 

"These glowing nuts are emblems true 
Of what in human life we view; 
The ill-matched couple fret and fume, 
And thus in strife themselves consume; 
Or from each other wildly start 
And with a noise forever part. 
But see this very happy pair, 
Of genuine love and truth sincere, 
With mutual fondness, while they burn 
Still to each other kindly turn, 
And as the vital sparks decay 
Together gently sink away 
Till life's fierce ordeal being past 
Their mingled ashes rest at last." 

Nuts seem to have been used very early 
for purposes of divination. The Roman 
boys made some use of nuts in their sports, 
for Horace speaks of it; and in marriage 
ceremonies among the Romans, the bride- 



Halloween 193 

groom threw nuts about the room for the 
boys to scramble for. In the ancient Romish 
calendar nuts are referred to, as some re- 
ligious use was made of them. 

Gay, in the " Spell," refers to the nut- 
burning ceremony : 

" Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame, 
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name; 
This, with the loudest bounce me sore amaz'd, 
That, in a flame of brightest color blaz'd; 
As blaz'd the nut, so may thy passion grow, 
For thus the hazel nut did brightly glow ! " 

Doctor Goldsmith, in the " Vicar of 
Wakefield," says that " the rustics relig- 
iously cracked nuts on All Hallow's 
Eve," and nuts are so much used in Eng- 
land and Scotland that Hallowe'en is called 
" Nut-crack night." 

Burns gives a picture of the nut-burning 
rite: 

"The auld guidwife's weel hoordet nits, 
Are round and round divided, 



194 The Year's Festivals 

And monie lads' and lassies' fates, 
Are there that night decided; 

Some kindle, couthie, side by side, 
An' burn togither trimly; 

Some start awa' wi' saucy pride, 
And jump out owre the chimlie 
Fu high that night." 



An old Scotch method of seeing future 
things, is to' pull a cabbage, blindfolded. 

A young woman would grope her way 
to the cabbage-patch and pull the first plant 
she stumbled against. The amount of earth 
clinging to its root showed the amount of 
her dowry, the shape and size indicated the 
appearance and height of the future hus- 
band, while the flavor of the heart and stem 
signified his disposition. 

In the old Scottish Hallowe'en game each 
took home the stalk and laid it behind the 
outer door, and the first person to enter next 
morning was to be the future husband. 

This old gruesome rhyme is supposed to 
refer to this cabbage pulling: 



Hallowe' en 195 

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. 
If all are white, all go to heaven; 
If one is black as Mustaph's evil, 
He'll soon be screechin' wi' the devil." 

Another Scotch rhymester has described 
the ceremony of the kail stalk : 

" Then first and foremost through the kail, 
Their slocks maun a' be sought ance: 
They steek their e'en, an grip an wale 
For muckle anes, and straight anes." 

An appropriate Hallowe'en method of in- 
ducing visions directs a young lady to eat 
an apple while standing before a mirror 
combing her hair. The future husband will 
look into the glass over her shoulder. To 
be effectual this must be done at midnight, 
but such is the unaccountable nature of 
woman that the test is often abandoned 
when the very moment of fulfilment is near 
at hand. After all, she would rather be- 
lieve that there is a some one, somewhere, 
whom her thought may vaguely idealize, 



196 The Year's Festivals 

than to know definitely the face and form 

of one, who, after all, might disappoint 

her. How much better, then, she thinks, 

to spend the night in refreshing sleep, than 

to try to explore the future by such uncanny 

tricks, when her excited imagination is as 

likely to produce a fiend as a god — or a 

husband. 

Another night spell is, to walk backward 

several rods, out-of-doors, in the moonlight, 

with a mirror, or if this is done indoors, 

with a candle in one hand and a mirror in 

the other, repeating the following rhyme. 

A face will (without doubt!) be seen in the 

glass. 

"Round and round, O stars so fair! 
Ye travel and search out everywhere; 
I pray you, sweet stars, now show to me 
This night who my future husband shall be." 

Many of the rhymes are written to be 
said by girls, it being taken for granted that 
only they are curious about matrimonial 



Hallowe'en 197 

affairs. Should there, however, be inquisi- 
tive young men, this Scotch test is good for 
those who* have plenty of courage and a 
good constitution. " You go out, one or 
more, for this is a social spell, to a south- 
running spring or rivulet, where three 
lairds' lands meet, and dip your left shirt- 
sleeve. Go to bed in sight of a fire, and 
hang your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie 
awake, and sometime near midnight an 
apparition, having the exact figure of the 
grand object in question, will come and 
turn the sleeve as if to> dry the other side 
of it." 

It is not stated whether you detach the 
sleeve from your shirt for these processes, 
nor is the recipe given for curing your next 
morning's feelings, which have naturally 
resulted from a wetting, a sleepless night, 
and, very probably, a failure to see the 
gramd object you expected at midnight. 

Burns tells us of the Widow Leezie, who, 



198 The Year's Festivals 

perhaps, having* exhausted all others, was 
hard put for a new test, and used this one, 
originally intended for mankind alone : 

"A wanton widow Leezie was, 
As cantie as a kitlin; 
But och! that night among the shaws 

She got a fearfu' settlin' ! 
She thro' the whins, an' by the cairn, 
An' owre the hill gaed scrievin; 
Where three lairds' lan's met at the burn, 
To dip her left sark-sleeve in, 

Was bent that night." 

Another trick was to go out at night 
alone, into the barn, and take the implement 
for winnowing corn, called in Scotland a 
" wecht," go through the motions of win- 
nowing three times, and the future husband 
will pass through the barn, so — 

" Meg fain wad to the barn gaen, 
To winn three wechts o' naething; 
But for to meet the deil her lane, 
She pat but little faith in : 
She gies the herd a pickle nits, 
An' twa red cheekit apples, 



Hallowe en 1 99 

To watch, while for the barn she sets, 
In hopes to see Tarn Kipples 
That vera night." 

Gay, in his " Pastorals," describes a Hal- 
lowe'en custom which was sure of results, 
but needed much patience. 

A young girl says : 

" At eve last Hallowe'en no sleep I sought, 
But to the field, a bag of hemp seed brought, 
I scattered round the seed on ev'ry side, 
And three times in a trembling accent cry'd : 
' This hemp seed with my virgin hand I sow, 
Who shall my true love be, the crop shall mow.' " 

In another verse is described the expe- 
rience of a rustic maiden whose method of 
divination was quite easy and successful : 

" As peascods once I plucked I chanced to see 
One that was closely filled with three times three, 
Which when I crop'd, I safely home convey'd, 
And o'er the door the spell in secret laid ; — 
The latch moved up, when who should first come in, 
But in his proper person — Lubberkin ! " 



200 The Year 's Festivals 

This girl is bound to see Lubberkin in all 
her experiments, and she is not satisfied 
till she has tested all probabilities: 

" I pare this pippin round and round again, 
My shepherd's name to flourish on the plain, 
I fling th' unbroken paring o'er my head, 
"Upon the grass a perfect L is read." 

She tries again : 

" This pippin shall another tryal make, 
See from the core two kernels brown I take; 
This on my cheek for Lubberkin is worn, 
And Booby Clod on t'other side is borne; 
But Booby Clod soon drops upon the ground, 
A certain token that his love's unsound. 
While Lubberkin sticks firmly to the last; 
Oh, were his lips to mine but join'd so fast." 

There are many other ways with which 
simple people in earnest, and wise people in 
sport, try to discern future things. 

An easy way is for each person to melt 
some lead and pour it through a wedding- 
ring into a dish of water. The lead will 
cool in various shapes which may (or may 



Hallowe en 20 1 

not) be suggestive of future events. An 
ingenious imagination will see weddings in 
bell-shaped drops, fame in a lead torch, 
wealth in a horn of plenty, and travel in a 
trunk. In fact, one can make almost any- 
thing out of the lead shapes, and interpret 
them in almost any way. 

There are other ways of finding out in 
a very few minutes what will take years 
to discover by more scientific methods. 

Cut the letters of the alphabet from a 
newspaper and sprinkle them on the sur- 
face of water; the floating letters will com- 
bine to spell the name of future husband or 
wife. 

String a raisin in the middle of a thread 
a yard long and let two persons take each 
an end of the string in his mouth ; whoever, 
by chewing the string, reaches the raisin 
first, has the raisin, and (if he lives) will be 
the first to be wedded. 

Tie a wedding-ring to a silk thread and 



202 The Year 's Festivals 

hold it suspended within a goblet; then re- 
peat the alphabet slowly ; whenever the ring 
strikes the side of the goblet, begin the alpha- 
bet again, and in this way spell out the 
name of your life-partner. 

If a maiden wants to tempt the future, 
let her walk down-stairs backward, holding 
a lighted candle over her head. Upon reach- 
ing the bottom, if she turns around suddenly, 
before her will stand the wished- for one — 
at least, he will be there if he has any idea 
of what is going on ; therefore he must have 
a previous hint, if this test is to be successful. 

The crowning Hallowe'en test is made by 
a girl who must go directly to her room 
without speaking to any one, and, kneeling 
beside her bed, must twine together the 
stems of two roses (roses in October!), and 
repeat the following lines, looking mean- 
while upon the lover's rose: 

" Twine, twine and intertwine, 
Let my love be wholly mine; 



Hallowe'en 203 

If his heart be kind and true, 
Deeper grow his rose's hue." 

If her admirer be faithful, the color of the 
rose will appear darker. If unfaithful, de- 
ponent saith not what happens. 

, In an old book of charms published in 
Edinburgh in 1690, entitled " Old Father 
Time's Bundle of Faggots Newly Bound 
Up," we are told that an infallible means of 
getting a sight of the future lady is to place 
on a table a glass of water in which a small 
piece of wood is floating. In the night you 
will dream of falling from a bridge into 
a river, and of being rescued by one whom 
you will see as distinctly as though you were 
awake. Gay says of this : 

" Last Hallowe'en I looked my love to see 
And tried a spell to call her up to me. 
With wood and water standing by my side, 
I dreamed a dream and saw my own sweet bride." 

Another method is to go at midnight to 
a walnut-tree, walk three times around it, 



204 The Year's Festivals 

look up into the branches, and ask your 
true love to bring you some nuts. 

*• Last Hallow Eve I sought a walnut-tree 
In hopes my true Love's face that I might see. 
Three times I called, three times I walked apace; 
Then in the tree I saw my true Love's face." 

A very old Hallowe'en divination, which 

was formerly much practised by the English 

rustics, will tell you from what quarter of 

the compass the future husband or wife will 

come. Go out — of course, at midnight — 

pluck out a lock of hair and cast it to the 

breeze. In whatever direction it is blown, 

from that point will come the long-expected 

person. Gay, in the " Pastorals," has put 

all these things in verse^ and refers to this 

one: 

" I pluck this lock of hair from off my head 
To tell whence comes the one that I shall wed. 
Fly, silken hair, fly all the world around, 
Until you reach the spot where my true love 
is found." 



Halloween 205 

Another very similar way is also described 
in verse: 

" This Lady Fly I take from off the grass, 
Whose spotted back might scarlet red surpass. 
Fly, Lady Bird, North, South, or East or West, 
Fly where the man is found that I love best." 

With such a variety of experiments suited 
to all sorts and conditions, and which may be 
practised at all times of day or night, there 
need not be any one who is at all doubtful 
as to his future in matrimonial affairs. If 
one spell does not satisfy, try another, try 
all, but let us be sure tx> settle the matter 
somehow, for until that is done, I fear some 
of us will never rest. 

In Ireland upon Hallowe'en the whole 
family partake of the mysterious spirit of 
the time. Aged grandsires delight to recall 
their youthful days, when people expected 
the marvellous, and the most unaccountable 
things caused no wonder. Then midnight 



206 The Year 's Festivals 

goblins lurked everywhere, women dressed 
in white glided about, gaunt warriors gal- 
loped through dark glens in black armor, 
with plumes of waving fire, and crowds of 
transparent figures revelled among old ruins 
or danced in the moonlight. 

A traveller, who could not avoid making a 
journey on that night, played boisterous 
tunes on his pipe or roared a lively song to 
frighten away elves and hobgoblins who 
haunted the dark and played tricks upon 
quiet travellers. 

While at these home gatherings the 
grandfathers tell stories of the good old 
days, the mothers sit knitting. Their past 
is not so far behind as to be surrounded with 
a pleasant mist, while enough of the future 
is guessed to leave no room for curiosity. 
But the girls are still prying. They are 
dumbly kneading cake with their left thumbs 
— a single word would break the spell, and 



Tballoween 

Snap- Apple Night 

in Ireland 



Halloween 207 

destroy the hope of seeing their future hus- 
bands in dreams, after having eaten the 
mystic " dumb-cake." 

While the girls are busy getting wisdom 
from dumb-cakes, the boys of the family, 
who care neither for past or future, indulge 
in the present joys of " snap-apple." From 
the ceiling is hung a skewer with an apple 
stuck upon one end, and on the other a 
lighted candle. Whoever is dexterous 
enough to catch the apple in his mouth 
takes it as a prize ? while the boy who catches 
the candle gets only burns. A singed head 
and a mouthful of tallow is awarded to all. 
To these boys Hallowe'en means only a time 
to enjoy boisterous games, with plenty of 
nuts and apples to play with and to eat ; the 
mysterious influence caught and utilized by 
their elders passes entirely over their young 
heads. 

The Hallowe'en party described by Burns 



2o8 The Yearns Festivals 

shows how the Scotch liked to spend the 
night. The whole list of ceremonies was 
gone through, with more or less success; 
every lass was in high spirits, and every lad 
determined that each vision should material- 
ize. 

The poem " Hallowe'en " opens and closes 
with a picture — the various Hallowe'en 
ceremonies being described in intervening 
stanzas : 

" Among the bonie winding banks 
Where Doon rins wimplin clear; 
Where Bruce ance rul'd the martial ranks, 

An' shook his Carrick spear: 
Some merry, friendly, contra-folks 

Together did convene 
To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, 
An' haud their Hallowe'en 

Fu blythe that night. 

" Wi' merry songs an' friendly cracks, 
I wat they did na weary; 
And unco tales, an' funnie jokes — 
Their sports were cheap an' cheery; 



Hallowe en 209 

Till buttered sowens, wi' fragrant lunt, 

Set a' their gabs a-steerin'; 
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt 

They parted aff careerin' 

Fu blythe that night." 



THANKSGIVING 



THANKSGIVING 

'Lord, thou hast given me a cell, 

Wherein to dwell ; 
A little house, whose humble roof 

Is weather proof; 
Under the spars of which I lie 

Both soft and dry; 
Where thou, my chamber for to ward, 

Hast set a guard 
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep 

Me, while I sleep. 
Low is my porch as is my fate ; 

Both void of state; 
And yet the threshold of my door 

Is worn by th' poor, 
Who thither come, and freely get 

Good words or meat. 

Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar 

Make me a fire, 
Close by whose loving coal I sit, 

And glow like it. 
Lord, I confess too, when I dine 

The pulse is thine, 

213 



214 The Year's Festivals 

'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth 

With guiltless mirth, 
And giv'st me wassail-bowls to drink 

Spiced to the brink. 
Lord, 'tis Thy plenty dropping hand 

That soils my land, 
And giv'st me for my bushel sown, 

Twice ten for one. 

All these, and better, Thou dost send 

Me, to this end, — 
That I should render, for my part, 

A thankful heart." 

— Rob't Herrick. 



Home for Thanksgiving 



THANKSGIVING 

" Some hae meat that canna eat, 
Some hae na' meat, but want it, 
But we hae meat, and we can eat, 
And sae the Lord be thankit." 

— Burns. 

Thanksgiving Day, as annually remem- 
bered in the United States, is peculiarly an 
American institution; but days of thanks- 
giving in recognition of special mercies have 
been common to all Christian nations for 
centuries; yet, since the annual celebration 
of the Feast of Ingathering by the Jews, 
no other nation has regularly set apart one 
day in each year for a thanksgiving festival. 

We cannot claim any originality for this 

institution, for the ancient Hebrews kept 

their feast of thanksgiving with great re- 
2I 5 



216 The Year's Festivals 

joicing and religious ceremonies. This was 
established by Yaweh himself under direc- 
tions given to Moses in Deuteronomy, the 
sixteenth chapter : " Thou shalt observe the 
feast of tabernacles, seven days after that 
thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine." 
They were further commanded to " rejoice 
in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy 
daughter," with the familiar list of man- 
servant, maid-servant, and Levite, stranger 
and fatherless, widow and orphan. The ox 
and ass are not included, but they doubtless 
had their share of the corn if not of the 
wine. 

In Leviticus we are told that the Lord 
spake unto Moses, and said : " Speak unto 
the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth 
day of the seventh month shall be the feast 
of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. 
. . . Ye shall do no servile work therein; 
also' on this fifteenth day .of the seventh 
month, when ye have gathered in the fruit 



Thanksgiving 217 

of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the 
Lord, seven days . . . and ye shall rejoice 
before the Lord your God seven days." 
Again, in Exodus, is mentioned " the feast 
of the harvest, the first fruits o<f thy labors, 
which thou hast sown in the field, and the 
feast of ingathering which is the end of the 
year, when thou hast gathered in thy labors 
out of the field." 

All of these feasts occurred after harvest- 
time, when material blessings were both 
abundant and obvious; and the people not 
only had the disposition but the time to 
be thankful, after the labor of crop-gather- 
ing was over. 

In these thanksgiving proclamations the 
people were commanded to take holiday, to 
feast and to rejoice; and all the proclama- 
tions since that day, down to' those annually 
issued by our governors, have not improved 
upon this. 

So great were the festivities on these 



218 The Year's Festivals 

occasions of Jewish feasts that Plutarch 
wrote of them : " The Jews celebrate two 
feasts unto Bacchus. In the midst of the 
vintage they spread tables, spread with all 
manner of fruits, and live in tabernacles 
made especially of palm and ivy wreaths 
together. ... A few days later they kept 
another festival, which openly shows it was 
dedicated to Bacchus, for they carried 
boughs of palms in their hands, with which 
they went into the temple, the Levites going 
before, with instruments of music." 

The ancient Greeks also held a feast closely 
resembling that of the Jews. This feast, 
which continued nine days, was called the 
Feast of Demeter, in honor of Demeter, the 
goddess of the corn-field and harvests. The 
sacrifices offered were mostly fruits of the 
soil, with oblations of wine, honey, and milk. 

The Romans observed a harvest-festival 
which they called Cerelia, which was as 
ancient as the reign of Romulus. Proces- 



Thanksgiving 219 

sions of men and women, with music and 
song, went into the fields to engage in wor- 
ship, rustic sports, and pleasures. 

The old English Harvest Home was a 
festival held at time of harvest, and was cele- 
brated with many rude and boisterous pro- 
ceedings; and in the time of Egbert and 
Alfred, the Saxon churls kept the harvest- 
feasts, and the practices of the Kentish farm- 
ers in Queen Elizabeth's time were not 
much different. The day was spent in danc- 
ing on the village green, with rural sports, 
while at night great blazing bonfires were 
built, and great quantities of home-brewed 
ale were drank. 

Queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation for 
a day of thanksgiving, saying : " On Thanks- 
giving Day no servile labor may be per- 
formed, and thanks should be offered for 
the increase and abundance of His fruits 
upon the face of the earth." 

There was a day of national thanksgiving 



220 The Year's Festivals 

in England on the defeat of the Spanish 
armada, and Oliver Cromwell gave direc- 
tions for a day of thanks during his reign. 
On the discovery of the " gunpowder plot " 
people gave thanks, and the day was ob- 
served for more than a century. " Guy 
Fawkes Day " is still remembered in Eng- 
land and the colonies. 

When George III. came to< himself after 
his temporary fit of insanity, the whole 
kingdom celebrated the event, and a thanks- 
giving service was held in St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral. 

Thanksgiving days have been held, occa- 
sionally, in Germany, France, and other na- 
tions, but we do not know of their becom- 
ing troublesome except in England. There 
the spirit of giving thanks was so lively that, 
as we have seen, any special victory in war, 
the recovery of a ruler from illnesSj the mis- 
carriage of a plot against the government, 
and many other events were made an excuse 



Thanksgiving 221 

for a holiday that was not found in the 
saints' calendar. At harvest-time, especially, 
the feast-days and saints' days were so nu- 
merous that the idlers neglected the very 
crops for which they were so anxious to 
be thankful, " in not taking th' oportunitie 
of good and serene weather offered upon the 
same, in time of harvest." Edward VI., see- 
ing the necessity of work in spite of play- 
days, decreed that it should be " lawful to 
every husbandman to labor on those holy 
days that came in time of harvest." 

Indeed, the Church and civil thanksgiving 
days had increased to such an extent that 
there were very few left for working days. 
Except in harvest-time in Edward's reign, 
no one was allowed to work on such days, 
and those who did were fined. 

There was formerly a long religious ser- 
vice in the morning, a fast till four o'clock, 
then a public feast. Later, the church ser- 
vice was shortened or omitted altogether, 



222 The Year's Festivals 

and the day was given up to excessive games 
and sports. Not only were the harvest 
thanksgiving days of importance, but the 
Sabbath, saints' days., fast and feast days, 
were equally times of recreation; and we 
read that Latimer, who went on a holy day 
to a certain church to preach, found the vil- 
lage deserted, the church locked, and the 
people all gone a-maying! 

Naturally, the English Puritans looked 
with disapproval on all such degenerating 
customs. In fact, these, with other offensive 
practices, became so intolerable to the Puri- 
tan mind that those who' had not supplied 
material for the block, or Queen Mary's bon- 
fires, decided to quit the country altogether. 
This did not dampen English fervor very 
much, for during the Commonwealth under 
Cromwell, there were observed, in one year, 
more than a hundred feast-days. 

Fasts and thanksgivings (which usually 
meant feasts) were the order of the day, 



Thanksgiving 223 

and supplemented each other perfectly, for 
after days spent in fasting and church ser- 
vice, people were allowed " a convenient 
time for their repast and refreshing; " but 
at the same time they were advised to " be- 
ware of all excess and riot, tending to glut- 
tony and drunkenness." This quotation 
from " Mandeville Travels " gives the 
whole programme of one of these typical 
holidays : 

" The Comoners upon festyfulle dayes, 
when thei scholden gon to Chirche to serve 
God, then gon thei to Tavernes." 

The Pilgrims who went to Holland in 
such disgust of English ways became some- 
what mollified, and grew accustomed to 
Dutch fast and feast days, which were cele- 
brated in a way more fitted to the occasion, 
as the poor were allowed to feast with their 
more favored neighbors. 

That the Puritans clung to the intense 
religious idea which they connected with 



224 The Year's Festivals 

thanksgiving days, is shown by the manner 
in which they celebrated these occasions 
when uninfluenced by the customs of a sur- 
rounding nation. The first thanksgiving 
service held in North America was observed 
with religious ceremonies conducted by an 
English minister, in the year 1578, on the 
shores of Newfoundland. This clergyman 
accompanied the expedition under Frobisher, 
who* settled the first English colony in Amer- 
ica. The records of this day have been 
preserved in part, in the rules and regula- 
tions which were carried out during the 
expedition : 

" In primus : — To banish swearing, dice 
and card playing, and filthy communication, 
and to serve God twice a day, with the ordi- 
nary services of the Church of England. 
On Monday morning, May twenty-seventh, 
1578, aboard the Ayde, we received all, the 
communion by the minister of Gravesend, 
prepared as good Christians toward God, 



Thanksgiving 225 

and resolute men for all fortunes; and 
toward night we departed toward Tilbury 
Hope. Here we highly prayed God, and 
altogether, upon our knees, gave him due 
humble and hearty thanks, and Maister 
Wolfall, a learned man appointed by her 
Majesty's council to be our minister, made 
unto us a goodlye sermon, exhorting all es- 
pecially to be thankful to God for His 
strange and marvelous deliverance in those 
dangerous places." 

Another similar service was held by the 
Popham colony, who settled at Sagadahoc 
on the Maine coast, in 1607. The record 
says : " Sundaye being the nineth of August, 
in the morninge, the most part of our hole 
company of both our ships, landed on this 
island, where the cross standeth, and thear 
we heard a sermon delyvred unto us by 
our preacher, giving God thanks for our 
happy meetinge and safe aryvall into this 
country; and so returned aboard again." 



226 The Year's Festivals 

The Thanksgiving of the Pilgrims at 
Plymouth is more familiar. After the experi- 
ences of their first year in America they were 
prepared to be grateful for very small mer- 
cies. During that time forty-six of the hun- 
dred and one settlers had died, and had been 
buried on the bluff overlooking the landing. 
All had suffered from cold, hunger, sick- 
ness, and fear; and death from the plague 
had taken away nearly half their numbers. 
They had lived for a time half-frozen, for 
their common house had burned. One of 
their number has given us some of the 
minor trials which were borne, saying that 
they were lost in the woods, they had been 
terrified by the roar of " Lyons," had met 
wolves that " sat on thier tayles and 
grinned " at them, and had been horribly 
frightened by the wild whoop of Indians 
and the flourish of tomahawks. 

These people had become accustomed to 
fasting, and the recollection of the " Feast of 



Thanksgiving 227 

Farewell " given to the Pilgrims by their 
friends of Leyden, on the eve of their de- 
parture from Holland, was found not suffi- 
cient to satisfy the pains of hunger. In the 
fall of 1 62 1 the men of Plymouth had gath- 
ered their crops from twenty acres of corn 
and six acres of barley and peas; the cold 
weather had brought into the harbor an 
abundance of game, and deer and other ani- 
mals were found in the forests near the set- 
tlement. Governor Bradford specified that 
during that autumn, " beside water-foule, 
ther was great store of wild turkies." About 
this time Governor Bradford gave direc- 
tion for the observance of a day of thanks- 
giving to be held December thirteenth, 1621. 
Edward Winslow described this event in 
strong but simple language: 

" Our harvests being gathered in, our gov- 
ernor sent four men on a fowling, so that we 
might after a special ' manner rejoice to- 
gether after we had gathered the fruit of 



228 The Year's Festivals 

our labors. They four killed in one day as 
much fowl as, with a little help beside, served 
the company almost a week. At which time, 
amongst other recreations, we exercised our 
arms, many of the Indians coming amongst 
us, and among the rest their greatest king, 
Massasoit, with some ninety of his men, 
whom for three days we entertained and 
feasted; and they (i. e. the Indians) went 
out and killed five deer, which they brought 
to the plantation and bestowed on our gov- 
ernor, and upon our captain (Standish), and 
others; and although it be not always so 
plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet 
by the goodness of God we are so far from 
want that we often wish you were partakers 
of our plenty." 

Governor Bradford, in his famous " His- 
tory of the Plymouth Colony," tells us of 
this " plenty " in a more specific way. We 
also see from his account, the great unself- 
ishness and fine spirit of hospitality among 



Thanksgiving 229 

the colonists. " They began now to gather 
in y e small harvest they had, and to fitte 
up their houses and dwellings against winter, 
being all well recovered in health & strength, 
and had all things in good plenty; for as 
some were thus employed in affairs abroad, 
others were exercised in fishing, about codd, 
& bass, & other fish, of which y ey tooke good 
store, of which every family had their por- 
tion. 

" All y e somer ther was no wante. And 
now begane to come in store of foule, as 
winter approached, of which this place did 
abounde, when they came first (but after- 
ward decreased by degrees). And of these 
they took many, besides venison. Besides 
they had aboute a peck of meale a weeke to 
a person, or now since harvest, Indian corne 
to y* proportion. Which made many after- 
wards write so largely of their plenty hear 
to their friends in England, which were not 
fained, but true reports. 



230 The Year's Festivals 

" In Novemb r , about y* time twelfe month 
that them selves came, ther came in a small 
ship to them unexpected or looked for, in 
which came M r Cushman and with him 35 
persons to remaine & live in y e plantation; 
which did not a little rejoice them. And 
they when they came a shore, and found all 
well, and saw plenty of vitails in every 
house, were no less glade. For most of 
them were lusty yonge men, and many of 
them wild enough, who- little considered 
whither, or aboute what, they wente, till 
they came into ye harbore at Cap-Codd. So 
they were all landed; but ther was not so 
much as a bisket-cake or any other victialls 
for them, neither had they any beding, but 
some sory things they had in their cabins, 
nor pot, nor pan, nor overmany cloaths. 
The plantation was glad of this addition 
of strenght but could have wished that many 
of them had been of better condition ; but y* 
could not now be helpte." 



ZEbanftgQivinQ %>ap 

An Early Thanksgiving 

Massasoit's Thanks 



Thanksgiving 231 

There were but fifty-five English people 
to eat this first Thanksgiving feast of the 
Pilgrims, yet with the ninety Indians there 
were plenty to provide for. There were 
only four women in the colony, who, with 
the help of one servant and a few young 
girls, prepared the food for three days for 
a hundred and twenty men, three-fourths of 
whom were Indians, whose capacity for 
gorging was unequalled. 

What courage and good faith they had 
to celebrate in this way! for they had little 
cause to rejoice. This little company of 
stern men, armed, surrounded by savages 
who were gorgeous in holiday paint and 
feathers, and a few overworked, sad, home- 
sick women, were trying to forget the weary 
months of hard work and disappointment, 
and were bent upon a common enjoyment 
of the gifts nature had provided, for which 
they gave hearty thanks to God. 

From Governor Bradford and Mr. Wins- 



232 The Year's Festivals 

low we have, probably, a true and reason- 
able account of this first Plymouth Thanks- 
giving; but there are other historians who 
would give us very wonderful reports of 
conditions and events. We are told by a 
historian of the day of the " comfortable 
warm water " which was drank freely. 

What this " comfortable " drink was, we 
are not told, but a Pilgrim Thanksgiving 
feast cannot be thought of as being accom- 
panied with much carousing or drunkenness. 
Perhaps the imaginative chronicler who 
mentions " comfortable warm water " was of 
the same order as Thomas Morton, who, in 
his wonderful book, " The New England 
Canaan," makes the Massachusetts wilder- 
ness a land flowing with milk and honey. 

His menu of the Puritan feast would have 
included turkey in every form, lobster, salad 
and bisque, bear-steak, chops, roast, whole 
or quartered, — and how easily caught and 
prepared ! 



Thanksgiving 233 

Morton says : " Turkies there are, which 
divers times in great flocks have sallied by 
our doores; and then a gunne (being com- 
monly in redinesse) salutes them with such 
a courtesie, as makes them take a turne in 
the Cooke room. They daunce by the doore 
so well ! Of these there hath bin killed, that 
have weighed forty-eight pound a piece. 
. . . The Beare is a tyrant at a lobster, and 
at low water will downe to the Rocks, and 
groape after them with great diligence. Hee 
will runne away from a man like a little 
dogge. If a couple of Salvages chance to 
espie him at his banquet, his running away 
will not serve his turne, for they will coate 
him and chase him betweene them home 
to their houses, where they kill him, to save 
a laboure in carrying him farre." 

Morton's Canaan more than blossomed as 
the rose — even the rattlesnakes were harm- 
less. He says that his " dogge was venomed 
with troubling one of these? and so> swelled 



234 The Year's Festivals 

that I had thought it would have bin his 
death; but with one Saucer of Salat oyle 
poured downe his throat he has recovered by 
the next day. Therefore it is a simplicity in 
any one that shall tell bug beare tales of 
horribile or terrible Serpents that are in this 
land." 



CHRISTMAS 



CHRISTMAS 

A thousand bells ring out, and throw 
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite 
The darkness, charmed and holy now ! 
The night that erst no name had worn, 
To it a happy name is given ; 
For in that stable lay, new-born, 
The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven, 
In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago ! " 



CHRISTMAS 

" In furry pall yclad, 
His brow enwreathed with holly never sere, 
Old Christmas comes to close the waning year." 

— Bampfylde. 

In all the year there is no day which fills 
the heart of the world with such joy and 
tenderness as Christmas. It is the time 
when the fire of generous impulse burns 
high, and, whatever may be said of the dan- 
ger of Christmas gifing being degenerated 
into mere commercial give-and-take, it is 
still a pure pleasure to thousands who love 
children and pity the poor in the spirit of 
Him in honor of whose birth the day is 
celebrated. 

During the centuries since Christmas first 
237 



238 The Year's Festivals 

came to be observed in the Church, the fes- 
tival has had many severe trials, being con- 
demned and flouted by some, made occasion 
of gross and sacrilegious riotings and un- 
bridled revelry by others, and at times stu- 
diously ignored by those not in sympathy 
with its upholders. 

The customs of Christmas, aside from 
those directly bearing upon the birth of 
Christ, are, like so many of our festive rites, 
adapted from the pagans, who could not 
have been expected to leave their established 
habits and change to new ones on becoming 
Christians, or, if they were expected to, did 
not, but had such a powerful influence on 
those who converted them, that the festivals 
of all subsequent years have reflected their 
temper. 

When Pope Gregory sent St. Augustine 
to convert Saxon England, he told him to 
accommodate, as far as possible, Christian 
to heathen ceremonies, that the people might 



Christmas 239 

not be startled ; and in particular he advised 
him to allow them, on certain festivals, to 
kill and eat " a great number of oxen to 
the glory of God the Father," as they had 
done in honor of the devil. On the Christ- 
mas next after the arrival of Augustine, he 
baptized many thousands, but permitted the 
usual celebration, only prohibiting the inter- 
mingling of Christians and pagans in the 
dances, 

The adaptation of pagan to Christian cus- 
toms is particularly true of Christmas, as 
many of the ancient Christmas practices were 
taken from the Roman feast of Saturn. The 
Puritan author of the " Historia Mastix " 
was not far wrong when he wrote : " If we 
compare our Bacchanalian Christmasses with 
these Saturnalia, we shall find such a near 
affinitye between them, both in regard to 
time and in manner of solemnizing, that 
we must needs conclude the one be but the 
very issue of the other." 



240 The Year's Festivals 

Some communities of Christians used to 
celebrate the sixth of January, others the 
twenty-ninth of March, others the twenty- 
fifth of December, but about the year 340, 
Pope Julius I. fixed the date as December 
twenty-fifth, and now all nations of Chris- 
tians celebrate the same day. 

During the Middle Ages the Church was 
in the fullest splendor of its power. Gothic 
architecture had attained its highest perfec- 
tion, painting and sculpture were almost ex- 
clusively devoted to the decoration of 
churches, the liturgical works were rich in 
poetry and music, and the Christmas cele- 
bration was gorgeously beautiful, both in 
Church, ceremonial, and social custom. 

But later the festival degenerated into a 
mere occasion for vulgar riot and lawless- 
ness. On Christmas Eve the streets were 
so filled with such a rough, boisterous 
crowd that passage was almost impossible. 
With drinking, gambling, shouts of vile 



Christmas 241 

revel, and vulgar songs, the Lord of Misrule 
and his companions held full sway, and none 
dared, or cared, to interfere. 

Master Stubbs, the Puritan, in his char- 
acteristic way, describes this horse-play of 
the time; and it is said that he has not 
exaggerated it. 

" All the wild heads of the parish flock- 
ing together^ choose them a grand captain 
of Mischief, whome they enoble with the 
title of Lord of Misrule; and him they 
crown with great solemnity and adopt for 
their king. This king anointed, chooseth 
four, twenty, forty, three-score, or an hun- 
dred like himself to wait upon his lordly 
Majesty, and to guard his noble person. 

" Then every one of these men he in- 
vested! with his liveries of green, of yellow, 
or some other light wanton color; and as 
though they were not gaudy enough, they 
bedeck themselves with scarves, ribbons, and 



242 The Year's Festivals 

laces, hung all over with gold rings, precious 
stones, and other jewels. 

" This done, they tie about either leg 
twenty or forty bells, with rich handkerchiefs 
on their heads, and sometimes laid across 
their shoulders and necks. 

" Then have they their hobby-horses, their 
dragons, and other antics, together with their 
bawdy pipes and thundering drummers to 
strike the devil's dance withal. 

" Then march this heathenish company to 
the church, their pipes piping, their drums 
thundering, their bells jingling, their hand- 
kerchiefs fluttering about their heads like 
madmen, their hobby-horses and other mon- 
sters skirmishing among the throng. And 
in this sort they go to church though min- 
ister be at prayer or preaching, — dancing 
and singing with such a confused noise that 
no man can hear his own voice. And these 
terrestrial furies spend the Sabbath day. 

" Then they have certain papers wherein 



Christmas 243 

is printed some babelerie or other imaginary 
work, and these they call my Lord of Mis- 
rule's badges. These they give to every one 
that will give them money to maintain them 
in their heathenish devilry. And who will 
not show himself buxom to them, and give 
them money, he shall be mocked and flouted 
shamefully, — yea, and many times carried 
on a cow-staff and dived over head and ears 
in water or otherwise most horribly abused." 

These holy-day frolics seem to have been 
indulged in at first by the common people, 
but the clergy and magistrates connived at 
these rude ceremonials, and churches were 
given up to their revels and mock services, 
which consisted of imitations of sacred rites, 
and parodies on the hymns of the church. 

An effort was made to reform these prac- 
tices, but they had taken too firm a hold on 
the people. The spirit of the times was not 
above such desecrations, and those who pro- 
tested were thrown into prison. 



244 The Year's Festivals 

As the Protestant spirit gained among 
the people, the antagonism which arose 
toward the Church became bitter indeed, and 
all Church-days and holy-days were strictly 
disregarded. 

One of the popular Rump ballads at the 
time of the reaction from the rule of Crom- 
well, expresses the feeling with which Prot- 
estants were regarded by their opponents, 
for not observing Christmas and other holi- 
days: 

" But such have been these times of late, 
That holy-days are out of date, 

And holynesse to boote; 
For they that do despise and scorn 
To keep the day that Christ was born 

Want holynesse, no doubt." 

At the time of the Reformation the Cal- 
vinists rejected the celebration of Christmas 
absolutely, and the clergy in Scotland tried 
to throw contempt on the day. It is said that 
they made their wives and servants spin and 



Christmas 245 

weave, and their tenants to yoke their oxen 
to the plough ; but John Hamilton says that 
" Our Lord has not left it unpunisit : for 
their oxen ran mad and brake their nekis 
and lamed sum pleughmen, as is notoriously 
knawin in sundrie partes of Scotland." 

Even in the midst of fanaticism, however, 
Christmas festivities could not be entirely 
abolished, for there were those who cele- 
brated the day without excess, in mere gaiety 
of heart, without the least intention of dis- 
honoring religion. In the " Vindication of 
Christmas," old Father Christmas, complain- 
ing of his treatment under Puritan rule, 
says : " But, welcome or not, I am come," 
— and he came to stay. He says further that 
his best welcome was from some Devonshire 
farmers. " After dinner, we rose from the 
boord, and sate by the fire, where the harth 
was imbrodered all over with roasted apples 
piping hot, excepting a bole of ale for a 
cooler, after which we discoursed merily; 



246 The Year's Festivals 

some went to cards, others sang carols and 
pleasant songs suitable to the times : then 
the poor laboring hinds and maid-servants, 
with the ploughboys, went nimbly to danc- 
ing, the poor toyling wretches being glad 
of my company, because they had little or 
no sport at all till I came amongst them; 
and therefore they skipped and leaped for 
joy, singing a carol to the tune of hey: 

" Let's dance and sing and make good cheer, 
For Christmas comes but once a year. 
Draw hogsheads dry, let flagons fly, 
For now the bells shall ring; 
Whilst we endeavor to make good 
The title 'gainst the king." 

So in spite of the changes of Church and 
state, the Christmas spirit ruled in every 
heart, and the day was observed in some way 
according to the rank and temper of the 
individual. 

There are many customs connected with 
the celebration of Christmas which have 
been followed for centuries. That of dec- 



Christmas 247 

orating houses and churches with ever- 
greens is of very ancient date, the tradi- 
tional plants being box, fir, holly, and mistle- 
toe; and all these are still in demand. « The 
fir Christmas-tree was first used by the 
Germans, and from them it was introduced 
into England. 

The ancient Druids went in solemn pro- 
cession to the annual cutting of mistletoe 
on the sixth day of the moon nearest New 
Year's. The officiating priest, clad in white 
robes and carrying a golden sickle, cut the 
plant, which was received on a white cloth. 
To* add to the impressiveness, bulls, and even 
human victims, were offered in its honor. 
Mistletoe was supposed to keep away 
witches, and the people accordingly paid the 
Druids large sums for a piece of it to hang 
around their necks for a charm. There is 
an old superstition that to hold a sprig of 
mistletoe in the hand will not only enable 
one to see ghosts, but will force them to 



248 The Year's Festivals 

speak to him; and, according to tradition, 
the maid not kissed beneath the mistletoe at 
Christmas will go without a husband another 
year. 

The use of greens for decoration is seen 
in this old English description, which has 
a mixture of superstition : " Against the 
feast of Christmas, every man's house, as 
also their parish churches, were decked with 
Holm, Iuy, Bays, and whatsoeuer the season 
of the yeere aforded to be greene. The 
Conduits and Standards of the streetes were 
likewise garnished. Amongst the which, I 
read that in the yeere 1444, by tempest of 
thunder and lightening, Paul's steeple was 
tiered, but with great labour quenched, and 
toward morning a Standard of tree being 
set up in the midst of the pauement, fast in 
the ground, nayled full of Holme and Iuy, 
for the disport of Christmas to the people, 
was torn up and cast downe by a malignant 
Spirit (as was thought), and the stones of 



Christmas 249 

the pauement all about were cast in the 
streets, and into divers houses, so that the 
people were sore aghast at the Tempest." 

The high regard in which holly was held 
is expressed in this old Saxon couplet: 

"Whosoever against holly do cry- 
In a rope shall be hung full high. 
Alleulia ! " 

And a well-known fifteenth-century carol be- 
gins: 

" Holly and Ivy, Box and Bay 
Put in the church on Christmas Day." 

Decorations remained in churches and 
dwellings till Candlemas Day, when they 
must all be taken down, for people had super- 
stitions about their remaining longer. Her- 
rick alludes to this popular prejudice in the 

lines : 

"Down with the rosemary, and so 
Down with the baies and mistletoe; 
Down with the holly, ivie, all 
Wherewith ye drest the Christmas Hall; 



250 The Year's Festivals 

That, so the superstitious find 
No one least branch there left behind; 
For look how many leaves there be 
Neglected there : Maids, trust to me, 
So many goblins you will see." 



The Yule-log is a remnant of the Juul, 
when the Scandinavians used to kindle huge 
fires in the honor of their god Thor. 

In some parts of old England, bringing 
in the Yule-log was the principal ceremony 
of Christmas Eve, and was welcomed with 
song and sport. These stanzas, found in the 
Sloane Manuscripts, are supposed to be of 
the time of Henry VI. : 

" Welcome be Thou, heavenly King, 
Welcome, bairn on this morning, 
Welcome, for whom we shall sing 

Welcome Yule. 

"Welcome be ye, Stephen and John: 
Welcome innocents every one; 
Welcome Thomas Martyr one 

Welcome Yule. 



Cbristmas 

Bringing in the Yule -Log 



Christmas 2$i 

'Welcome be ye that are here: 
Welcome all, and make good cheer; 
Welcome all another year 

Welcome Yule." 



Part of the log was carefully preserved 
to light the Yule-log of the succeeding year. 
It was believed that a piece of the log in 
the house was a security against fire; and if 
a squinting person entered the room while 
it was burning, all sorts of ill-luck would 
come to the family. 

A Yule-candle of enormous size was 
lighted, which burned on the table at supper, 
and in the buttery of St. John's College, 
Oxford, an ancient candle-socket of stone 
still remains. It was thought that nothing 
added more to the cheer of the company 
than plenty of warmth and light, and both 
were particularly welcome to the peasants 
who were entertained with a dinner at the 
landlord's house. It was the old English 
custom for the serfs to bring a load of wood 



252 The Year's Festivals 

with them, and their dinner was to' last the 
length of time that it took " to burn away 
a wet wheel " on the open fire in the hall, 
in which the meal took place. As this " wet 
wheel " (which was simply a tree section of 
green wood) was supplied by the tenants, 
and their dinner of good things was to last 
during its burning, we may be sure that 
each year the " wheel " was cut thicker and 
thicker till it became a log. 

Burning the Yule-log in England in later 
times was an important ceremony. The 
log was drawn by servants into the hall, 
where each member of the family, sitting 
down in turn on the log, sang a Yule-song, 
and drank a cup of spiced ale. The log was 
then cast on the fire with prayers for the 
safety of the house and the happiness of its 
inmates until next Yule-tide. Then came a 
riotous time when the spirit of misrule 
reigned. Pleasures were provided for all, 
Yule-cakes, barrels of ale, dancing, singing, 



Christmas 253 

romping, laughing, kissing under the mistle- 
toe, more eating and drinking ; then gather- 
ing around the blazing log to tell legendary 
tales till the bells of midnight gave warning 
that it was time to disperse. 

In Herrick's rollicking verse is a picture 
of a Yule-log company : 

" Come bring with a noise 
My merry, merry boys, 

The Christmas log to the firing. 
While my good dame she 
Bids ye all be free 

And drink to your heart's desiring. 

"With the last year's brand 
Light the new block, and 

For good success in his spending, 
On your psalteries play, 
That sweet luck may 

Come while the log is tending." 

In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1677, he 
observes for Christmas Day: 

" Now blocks to cleave 
This time requires, 



254 The Year's Festivals 

'Gainst Christmas for 
To make good fires." 

A halo of superstition seems to surround 
Christmas Eve, and people liked to believe 
that the oxen knelt in the stalls in adoration, 
that bells were heard from under the earth, 
that bees hummed Christmas hymns in their 
hives, and the cock sang all the night 
through. Marcellus says, in Hamlet: 

" Some say 
That ever 'gainst the season comes 
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
The bird of dawning singeth all night long; 
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad, 
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, 
So hallowed and so gracious is the time." 

A famous Christmas wonder is the thorn- 
tree which blossoms every Christmas Day. 
According to the legend, St. Joseph of Ari- 
mathea landed not far from the town of 
Glastonbury, England, and stuck his staff 
into the ground while he rested himself. 



Christmas 255 

The stick took root and budded afterward 
every Christmas. The tree was cut down 
by a Puritan, but we are told that he cut 
his leg during the chopping, and a chip flew 
up and put out his right eye. 

The trunk of this wonderful tree, though 
separated from the root, grew and flourished, 
and slips were planted elsewhere so that 
blossoms were taken abroad, and sold as 
relics to merchants, at fabulous prices. 

Mumming and masking were favorite 
Christmas amusements in the olden time, 
and are probably remnants of the Roman 
Masquerades. 

About the twelfth century miracle plays 
were introduced, and London became famous 
for them. Although full of anachronisms, 
these plays were none the less entertaining 
to the people, who were easily pleased. 
Noah's wife refuses to go into the ark, and 
swears by St. John; when forced in, she 
salutes Noah with a. box on the ear. 



256 The Year's Festivals 

Pharaoh, in his pursuit of the Israelites, 
when in fear of drowning - , recommends his 
people to lift up their hearts to Mahomet. 
Noah's wife swears by Mary, Caiaphas sings 
mass, and the wondering shepherds are ac- 
quainted with the wise men of Gotham. 

In 1377 a splendid masquerade was per- 
formed by the citizens of London before the 
Black Prince, and again twelve aldermen 
with their sons visited Henry IV. as mum- 
mers. Henry VIII. passed an act declaring 
mummers liable to be sent to jail as vaga- 
bonds, which of course abolished the prac- 
tice. 

Besides public entertainments, there were 
various sports and games for the family. A 
list of games given in Burton's " Anatomy 
of Melancholy " not only shows a little con- 
tradiction of contents and title of the ancient 
book, but shows us also that people were 
well supplied with Christmas amusements. 
There were " cardes, dice, chesse, shovel- 



Christmas 257 

board, the philosopher's game, small tremkes, 
shuttlecock, musicke, masks, singing, danc- 
ing, jests, riddles, merry tales, etc." There 
was also mention of " jugglers and jack- 
puddings, post and pair, hot cockles," and 
other games now obsolete. 

There were always the pleasures of a 
Christmas dinner, and these were by no 
means slight. The typical bill of fare in- 
cluded " good drink, pudding, souce, and 
mustard (which is a provoker of noble 
thirst), beef, mutton, pig, veal, goose, capon 
and turkey, apples and nuts." Poor Robin, in 
his Almanack for 1700, thinks feasting and 
Christmas should go hand in hand: 

" Now that the time has come wherein 

Our Saviour Christ was born, 
The larder's full of beef and pork, 

The garner's full of corn; 
As God hath plenty to thee sent, 

Take comfort of thy labors, 
And let it never thee repent 

To feast thy needy neighbors." 



258 The Year's Festivals 

A rhymster has dilated humorously on 
the menu of a Christmas dinner of the olden 
time: 

" They served up salmon, venison and wild boars 
By hundreds and by dozens and by scores, 
Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard, 
Muttons and fatted beeves, and bacon swine, 
Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan and bustard, 
Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons and in fine 
Plum puddings, pancakes, apple-pies and custard, 
And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine, 
With mead, and ale and cider of our own, 
For porter, punch and negus were not known." 

A boar's head was essential to a well- 
regulated Christmas dinner, and was not only 
considered very good eating but ornamental 
as well. 

A student of Queen's College, Oxford, is 
said to have been walking in Shotover 
Forest, studying Aristotle, when a boar 
rushed out at him, but with great presence 
of mind he crammed the book down the 
beast's throat and choked it. Of course, a 



Cbristmas 

Bringing in the Boar's 
Head 



Christmas 259 

poor student could not waste a good Aris- 
totle by losing it in the neck of a boar, so 
the head was cut off and the book recovered. 
But a good boar's head could not be wasted 
any more than a classic tome, so it was taken 
to the college and was roasted and eaten. 
This is said to have been the origin of the 
dish in the college. 

The lessee of the tithes of Horn Church, 
Essex, had to provide, every Christmas, a 
boar's head to be wrestled for in a field 
adjoining the church; the victor was ex- 
pected to invite his companions to> dinner, 
so that each got his share of roast pig's 
head. 

Another popular dish was a peacock 
roasted and decorated with feathers. If 
oaths were taken, it was with drawn swords 
held over the bird, and the words " By cock 
and pie " used. 

Whatever else was served, there must be 
a plum-pudding and mince pies; and we 



260 The Year 's Festivals 

find recipes for these essentials in the 
" Whole Body of Cookery Dissected," for 

1675- 

These feastings were abhorred by the 
Puritans, and their plain living has been 
the subject for doggerel: 

" The high-shoe lords of Cromwell's making, 
Were not for dainties, roasting, baking; 
The chiefest food they found most good in, 
Was rusty bacon and bag pudding; 
Plum broth was papish, and mince pie — 
Oh, that was flat idolatry ! " 

It is said that a Puritan declared that : 

"All plums the prophet's sons deny, 
And spice-broths are too hot: 
Treason's in December pie, 
And death within the pot." 

Christmas is remembered in the different 
countries of Europe according to their pe- 
culiar national characteristics. The Norwe- 
gian makes much of the virtue of hospitality, 
and the first courtesy is to offer a pipe of 



Christmas 261 

tobacco, and at dinner, which is simpler 
than among other people, national hymns 
are sung between the courses. No nation 
in the world can surpass Norway in its en- 
thusiastic love of country, and patriotic 
songs are in order even at a Christmas din- 
ner. 

In Sweden, where cleanliness is nearer 
godliness than anywhere else, the houses are 
completely renovated for the Christmas fes- 
tival. An almost universal custom is that 
of tying a sheaf of corn to a pole, which 
is placed in the garden for the birds' Christ- 
mas dinner. 

At Christmas time the Italians prepare 
for themselves sumptuous banquets, mostly 
of fish, done in wonderful and diverse ways ; 
and fish is eaten a week before the great 
feast night. Churches are largely attended 
at this season as the religious feature is 
emphasized. At home entertainments, the 
girls and boys vie with each other in showing 



262 The Year's Festivals 

off their accomplishments, and reciting what 
has been learned expressly for the day, to 
please and surprise their parents. Con- 
spicuous among the presents is the " urn 
of fate." Children and friends in order of 
their age are bidden to put their hands into 
the urn and draw their lot. Many a blank 
is drawn, but in the end each one is satis- 
fied with what best suits him. This urn 
is to the Italian children what the Christmas- 
tree is to the young people of other countries. 

It is from the Germans that we have 
taken the Christmas-tree, and from them we 
have learned to observe our social Christ- 
mas with more reference to the children. 
The home Christmas in Germany is the char- 
acteristic one, when all thought is for the 
pleasure of the home circle. 

The first century of Colonial life in Amer- 
ica saw few days for pleasures. The holy- 
days appointed by the English Church were 
unsavory to the Puritan nostrils, and their 



Christmas 263 

public celebration was strictly forbidden 
by the laws of New England ; new holidays 
were not quickly established, the sober church 
gatherings being thought recreation enough. 

The hatred of " wanton Bacchanalian 
Christmasses " described by Cotton as a time 
of " revelling, dicing, carding, masking, and 
mumming, consumed in compotations, in 
interludes, in excess of wine, in mad mirth," 
was but a reaction against the excesses of 
the festival led by the lord of misrule. 

The Pilgrims were so anxious to " beate 
down every sprout of Episcopacie," that they 
frowned down any attempt at celebrating a, 
holiday which had been countenanced by 
the English Church. A Plymouth Pilgrim 
wrote in his diary: " 1620, Monday the 25, 
being Christmas Day, we went on shore, 
some to fell tymber, some to saw, some to 
rine, and some to carry, so no man rested 
all that day ; but towards night, some, as 
they were at worke, heard a noyse of some 



264 The Year's Festivals 

Indians, which caused vs all to goe to our 
Muskets, but we heard no further, so we 
came aboord againe ? and left some twentie 
to keep the court of gard. We began to 
drink water aboord, but at night the Master 
caused vs to have some Beere, and so on 
board we had diverse times, now and then 
some Beere, but on shore none at all." 

This was a very frugal Christmas indeed ; 
but in those days everything was frugal, and 
people were thankful for little pleasures. 

Governor Bradford wrote in his diary: 
" Y e 25 day, begane to erect y e first house 
for comone use to receive them and their 
goods ; " and years later Christmas celebra- 
tions had not made much headway, as will 
be seen by an entry in a Puritan diary: 
" December 25, 1685. Carts come to town 
and shops open as usual. Some somehow 
observe the day, but are vexed. I believe 
that the Body of people profane it, and 



Christmas 265 

blessed be God no authority yet to compel 
them to keep it." 

Christmas Day; as it now exists contains 
elements of the old-time customs, which are 
modified and refined. There is fervor in 
church service, without fanaticism ; there is 
great hospitality, yet the poor are not for- 
gotten, and withal, in this semi-religious, 
semi-festive season are gaieties, reunion of 
friends, giving of presents, and an exchange 
of compliments. 

The Christmas customs in America have 
been transplanted from Europe : our Christ- 
mas-tree comes from Germany, our Santa 
Claus from Holland, the Christmas-stocking 
from Belgium or France, while " Merry 
Christmas " was the old English greeting 
shouted from window to street on Christmas 
morning. 

All nations will have their enjoyments, 
and, if they contain a religious element, they 
appeal to all classes. Christmas has ever 



266 The Year 's Festivals 

been the most important Christian festival 
in the calendar ? and in many countries, amid 
all the pleasures of the time, the true spirit 
of charity is expressed. A striking example 
of this is the Yule-peace of the Scandina- 
vians, which lasts from Christmas to Epiph- 
any, and is proclaimed by the public crier. 
Any violation of the Yule-peace is visited 
with double punishment; the courts are 
closed, old quarrels are adjusted, and old 
feuds are forgotten. Other, more sponta- 
neous, examples may be seen in the care of 
the poor, and especially of poor children at 
Christmas time; in this is shown the Christ 
spirit; for with him there was no prejudice, 
nor social tradition ; he kept in the company 
of those who needed him, while the social 
classes of his generation could not under- 
stand his preference for publicans and sin- 
ners instead of saints and Pharisees. 

We cannot estimate the extent of influ- 
ence which art has had in giving color 



Christmas 267 

to our Christmas thought. The great artists 
have given us their conception of the na- 
tivity, and these in turn have influenced our 
imaginations, and form a vital part of our 
associations with Christmas. The frescoed 
walls of churches, the bas-reliefs, the carved 
pulpits and shrines, the beautiful colored 
windows — all the pictorial conceptions of 
the early artists help to fix the event of 
Christ's birth in the popular mind. 

The modern thought in the celebration of 
this event seems to tend toward a healthy 
condition of love toward, and confidence in, 
our brother men; and while we hold the 
religious idea, we may sing and dance with- 
out fearing that the earth will open and 
swallow us up, but may be sure that what- 
ever objectionable features there are now 
will die out naturally under the influence of 
reason and progress, and a greater infusion 
of the Christ spirit. 

The birth of Christ has always been a 



268 The Year 's Festivals 

favorite theme for song- and verse. Many- 
very early Christmas carols are preserved 
in the British Museum. A collection of 
carols was published as early as 1521; an- 
other ancient collection is entitled, " Cer- 
tayne goodly Carowles to be songe to the 
Glory of God," and another, " Chrestenmas 
Carowles auctorisshed by my lord of Lon- 
don." 

Milton, in " Paradise Lost," alludes to the 
first Christmas carol : 

"His place of birth a solemn angel tells 
To simple shepherds keeping watch by night; 
They gladly thither haste, and by a quire 
Of squadroned angels hear his carol sung." 

Here is a carol of the time of Henry VI. : 

"Lystenyl, lordyngs, more and lees, 
I bryng you tydyns of gladnes, 
As Gabriel beryt wytnes, 

dicam vobis quia. 



Christmas 269 

" I bring you tydynges that fwul goude, 
Now es borne a blyesful foude 
That bowt us alle upon the rode, 
sua morte pia. 

"For the trespas of Adam, 
Fro ys fader Jhesu ho cam 
Here in herthe how kende he man, 
sua mente pia. 

" Mayde moder, swete virgine, 
Was godnys nay no man divine 
Sche bare a schild wyt wot pyne, 
teste profecia. 

"Marie moder, that ys so fre, 
Wyt herte mylde y pray to the, 
Fro the fende thou kepe me, 

tua price pia." 

A very curious specimen in the Scottish 
language is preserved in " Ane compendious 
Booke of godly and spiritual Sangs " : 

"ANE SANG OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST 
WITH THE TUNE OF BALULALOW 

"I come from Hevin to tell 
The best nowellis that ever befell; 
To you this thythinges trew I bring, 
And I will of them say and sing. 



270 The Yearns Festivals 

" This day to you is borne ane Child, 
Of Marie meike and Virgine mylde, 
That blissit Barne, bining and kynde, 
Sail you rejoyce baith heart and mynde. 

" My saull and lyfe, stand up and see 
Quha lyes in ane cribe of tree, 
Quhat Babe is that, so gude and faire? 
It is Christ, God's sonne and aire. 

" O God ! that made all creature, 
How art thou becum so pure, 
That on the hay and stray will lye, 
Amang the asses, oxin, and kye? 

" O, my deir hert, zoung Jesus sweit, 
Prepare thy creddle in my spreit, 
And I sail rocke thee in my hert, 
And never mair from thee depart. 

"But I sail praise thee ever moir, 
With sangs sweit unto thy gloir. 
The knees of my hert sail I bow, 
And sing that right Balulalow." 

THE END. 



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